Open Bankruptcy Project methodology · citation mirror at bankruptcymill.org
Standard litigation practice treats a supplemental production in native format as curative of an earlier stripped-metadata production. The Spoliation Is Historical Not Cured doctrine inverts this assumption. The original stripping is a fixed historical event under Rule 3.4(a) and the parallel state ethics rules, and the subsequent native-format production does not erase it. When the producing party also provides an admission stating the reason for the original stripping, that admission retroactively illuminates the intent of the historical event, and each successive supplemental production becomes additional evidence that the original stripping was deliberate rather than accidental. The doctrine pairs Rule 3.4(a) with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(e) and the analogous bankruptcy spoliation framework.