Excellent responses from everyone!  I was hoping to find a standard that I 
had overlooked and perhas ARMA can summon its think tank to issue a 
statement on that issue.

I am trying to move towards a "don't retain the metadata on destroyed items" 
exactly like what David Steward described.  In some depositions, when I have 
answered, "It was destroyed in the normal course of business in compliance 
with our corporate retention schedule," I am asked, "And just when was that 
information destroyed, Mrs. Fares?".  That is when I have to dive into the 
paper pile of logs again because I have hundreds of thousands of boxes.  Its 
just ugly not to be able to query that on a system.  It is as though the 
attorney is hoping to find out that I destroyed them AFTER there was some 
indication that the records would be requested for legal review.

I cannot say that failing to provide a specific date would come back to bite 
me, but I don't want to be a test case...know what I mean?  But, just once I 
would like to answer the question, "I don't recall the exact date, but our 
retention schedule says we keep those records X years.  They are not in the 
Records Center and the records in question were not on hold at the time that 
they were eligible for destruction, therefore, I am unable to produce them 
because they don't exist any more.  The attorney will reply, "So, you cannot 
prove that you destroyed them in the normal course of business at the time 
that they were destroyed."  Then I will answer, "I cannot prove that I did 
destroy them in the normal course of business, and you cannot prove that I 
didn't destroy them in the normal course of business."

At that point, they will be snapping on handcuffs and fining me for 
contempt...but it is fun to think about.  LOL!  I just read the article that 
Peter sent on "expiration vs. defensible destruction" so perhaps I can just 
tell him that the records "expired" and were subsequently cremated so that 
they could RIP. 

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