It May Be an Abuse of Discretion to Grant Summary Judgment for a Defendant Before Deciding a Plaintiff’s Sanctions Motion

Wayne K. Smith died from injuries sustained in a vehicle collision during a police pursuit. The personal representative filed tort and §1983 claims. The defendants moved for summary judgment. Plaintiff moved for spoliation sanctions alleging destruction of evidence. Smith v. Polk Co., 2026 WL 2280990 (W.D.N. Car. Aug. 7, 2026).  The court wrote that it may be error to grant summary judgment without first resolving a sanctions motion:

In Shaw v. Foreman, No. 24-7015, 2026 WL 159766 (4th Cir. June 4, 2026), the Fourth Circuit recently held that when the evidence at issue in a motion for sanctions based on spoliation is significant to the merits of an issue, a district court may abuse its discretion “by granting summary judgment without considering the sanctions motion.” Id. at *3. In light of Shaw, the Court herein considers the Plaintiff’s motions for sanctions based on spoliation before proceeding to consider the Defendant’s motion for summary judgment. [italics added].

On the facts, however, both sanctions motions were denied. Therefore, the court wrote: “Because the Court will deny both of the Plaintiff’s motions for sanctions, the Court further concludes that neither motion poses an obstacle to disposition of the Defendant’s motion for summary judgment.”  Summary judgment was then granted.

The cited Fourth Circuit decision, Shaw, was an action by a prisoner against prison officials.

Plaintiff brings procedural due process claims and First Amendment retaliation claims against prison officials. While incarcerated, Plaintiff was accused of an indecent exposure offense. He claimed his innocence and repeatedly insisted that officials view allegedly exculpatory video footage. Officials repeatedly refused to watch this footage and ultimately convicted him of the offense. Despite Plaintiff’s request to preserve the footage, Defendants failed to do so. During litigation, Plaintiff moved for spoliation sanctions.

177 Fed.4^th at 552 (emphasis added). Mr. Shaw contended that the video would show that he was at a different location at the time of the offense.  He said it would show him in a stairwell and the incident occurred in a bathroom. Defendants did not view the video, asserting it was of poor quality and that it would not have “aided” Mr. Shaw.

In a prior appeal, the Fourth Circuit described the video as at the “core” of Shaw’s “theory of vindication.”  On remand, it “came to light” in discovery that Defendants had not preserved it. Id. at 553.

However, on remand: “The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Defendants while the sanctions motion was still pending before the magistrate judge.” Id. The Fourth Circuit vacated that second decision and remanded with instructions to consider the sanctions motion. The Fourth Circuit wrote:

Critically, however, the district court never addressed the motion for sanctions on the spoliation of the video footage. On that basis, we must vacate the summary judgment decision and remand this case for a full consideration of the sanctions motion….  We cannot construe the absence of discussion as a sound and deliberate decision that the sanctions motion has no effect on the outcome of the case. We—and the available evidence—have made clear that the video footage is central to the merits. In our 2023 opinion remanding this case, we stated that the footage “would likely bear profound consequences on the claims in dispute.” … We even noted that the prison officials’ failure to produce the video was “profoundly powerful circumstantial evidence that perhaps they did retaliate.” … We did so because the record reflects a repeated, urgent insistence by Mr. Shaw to review the footage, met with a repeated, deliberate refusal by the Defendants to do so. Mr. Shaw asked numerous individuals to review the evidence in the months leading up to his [prison disciplinary] hearing, filed a Request for Documentary Evidence, filed an emergency grievance pleading for someone to review the footage, filed two informal complaints asking for a review of the footage, and wrote letters to the Offender Discipline  Unit (which may never have been delivered by Defendants). When all failed, Mr. Shaw asked for the footage to be preserved for review in litigation. But Defendants have failed to do even that much.

Despite Defendant’s argument that the footage is inconsequential, the record reflects that the contents were in fact crucial to Mr. Shaw’s case. Put simply, Mr. Shaw could not have been properly transferred to Red Onion if the footage contents were exculpatory.

The appellate court added that “the bottom line is that the video footage was crucial to the merits of the case. The magistrate judge accordingly called for both a hearing and supplemental briefing on spoliation sanctions. While most motions for sanctions are non-dispositive pretrial matters, in some situations, the nature of the sanction imposed is so severe that the sanction is functionally dispositive or results in an adverse inference that may subsequently defeat summary judgment.”  Id. at 555 (emphasis added).

In sum: “Even if the criteria for dispositive sanctions are not met in this case, the significance of the footage—emphasized by our prior opinion and highlighted by the available evidence—warranted, at minimum, a complete consideration of the sanctions motion.”  Id.  It was held to be an abuse of discretion to grant summary judgment “without considering the sanctions motion.”  Id.

This blog was initially posted on  Electronic Discovery Reference Model.