The goal is reconstruction—not collection for its own sake

A useful crash investigation preserves enough reliable information to reconstruct the movements, conditions, decisions and forces that produced the collision and resulting injuries.

Think in evidence layers. A strong file combines scene evidence, vehicle evidence, electronic data, human observations, institutional records, medical evidence and insurance information.

No single source necessarily tells the complete story.

Drivers can remember events differently. Witnesses can disagree. A police diagram can be incomplete. Photographs can omit distance and context. Digital systems can preserve only a few seconds or days. Reconstruction therefore depends on comparing independent sources.

Preservation is broader than admissibility. Preserve potentially relevant evidence first. Litigate whether it is ultimately admissible later.

At the scene: life and safety come first

Montana's Uniform Accident Reporting Act imposes immediate duties after qualifying crashes.

Stop

Remain when Montana law requires it

MCA § 61-7-103 requires a driver who knows or reasonably should know that the driver was involved in a crash with another person or a deceased person to stop and remain as required by law.

Assist

Exchange information and render aid

MCA § 61-7-105 requires specified identifying information and reasonable assistance to an injured person, including arranging necessary medical transportation when appropriate.

Notify

Contact law enforcement at the statutory threshold

MCA § 61-7-108 requires immediate notice for a crash involving injury, death, striking a deceased person, or apparent property damage of $1,000 or more.

Report

A written driver report can also be required

MCA § 61-7-109 generally requires the driver to submit a qualifying written report within 10 days unless law enforcement investigated and reported the crash under subsection (3).

Personal safety outranks evidence collection. Do not remain in an active travel lane, enter an unstable vehicle, climb onto a hazardous roadway, interfere with emergency personnel, or delay medical treatment merely to photograph evidence.

Unattended vehicles and roadside property have separate duties

MCA § 61-7-106 addresses a collision with an unattended vehicle and requires the driver to locate and notify the owner or leave the specified written information.

MCA § 61-7-107 separately addresses damage to fixtures or other property legally upon or adjacent to the highway.

If it can be done safely, document the scene before it changes

Traffic begins moving. Vehicles are towed. Debris is removed. Snow falls. Ice melts. Tire marks fade. Lighting changes. Surveillance systems overwrite video.

Useful immediate documentation can include:

wide photographs of the entire crash environment
vehicles before movement when safe and lawful
final resting positions
vehicle damage from multiple angles
license plates and identifying markings
traffic signals and signs
lane markings
road curvature and grade
intersection geometry
driveways and access points
sight obstructions
debris fields
fluid marks
tire marks and gouges
snow, ice, water or loose material
weather conditions
lighting conditions
nearby businesses and homes
visible cameras
witness names and contact information

Photograph context, not just damage. Twenty close-up photographs of a bumper cannot substitute for a wide image showing the vehicles, roadway, intersection, traffic controls and sight lines.

The law-enforcement investigation is important—but it is not the final civil investigation

An investigating officer may document:

drivers
passengers
witnesses
vehicles
insurance
road conditions
damage
measurements
statements
citations
diagrams
apparent sequence of events

That work can be highly valuable. Civil fault, however, is determined from admissible evidence and governing law—not merely from a checkbox, diagram, citation, or preliminary officer conclusion.

A crash report is an investigative source—not a judicial determination of civil fault. Montana separately restricts use of the driver's required report, while admissibility of police-created material depends on the evidence rules and the particular material offered.

Montana makes an important distinction between driver reports and police reports

Driver's required written report

MCA § 61-7-109(1) generally requires a driver involved in a crash causing death, injury, or more than $1,000 in property damage to report the matter in writing within 10 days unless the crash was investigated and reported by law enforcement under subsection (3).

Subsection (2) authorizes the Department to require supplemental driver reports and witness reports.

Statutory evidentiary protection: § 61-7-109(5) states that a report required by subsection (1) or (2) may not be used as evidence in a civil or criminal trial arising from the crash.

Law-enforcement report

MCA § 61-7-109(3) separately requires an officer who investigates a qualifying crash in the regular course of duty to forward a written report to the Department within 10 days after completing the investigation.

Do not broaden subsection (5) into a rule that every police report is statutorily inadmissible. The subsection expressly references reports required by subsections (1) and (2), not the officer report required by subsection (3).

Depositors v. Sandidge

In Depositors Insurance Co. v. Sandidge, 2022 MT 33, 407 Mont. 385, 504 P.3d 477, the Montana Supreme Court held that the vehicle crash report offered there to establish another driver's liability was inadmissible hearsay.

That ruling arose from the Montana Rules of Evidence and the manner in which the report was offered—not from a rule that every police observation, photograph, measurement or statement in a crash investigation is unusable.

Separate the report from its underlying evidence. Witness testimony, officer observations, photographs, measurements, properly authenticated recordings and other evidence can require their own evidentiary analysis.

Montana crash reports are confidential—but qualifying people have access

MCA § 61-7-114 generally makes required crash reports and supplemental information confidential rather than open to unrestricted public inspection.

The statute nevertheless permits examination and copying, without first obtaining a court order, of the law-enforcement report and supplemental information—including witness statements—by specified persons such as:

a person named in the report
a person involved in the crash
a qualifying authorized representative
that person's insurance carrier
a party to a civil action arising from the crash
specified representatives of a deceased person

Request the complete investigative file. Do not assume the first crash-report form is everything. Ask about supplements, witness statements, photographs, diagrams, measurements, recordings, citations and later investigative material.

Montana law also allows limited public vehicle-history research from crash information while restricting disclosure of identifying information.

Montana comparative negligence makes investigation of every participant important

MCA § 27-1-702 reduces a claimant's damages by the claimant's percentage of causally relevant negligence and can bar recovery when claimant negligence exceeds Montana's statutory threshold.

Investigate both sides of the fault allegation. Preserve evidence of what the adverse driver did and evidence likely to be used to attribute fault to the injured claimant.

Fahrnow illustrates why competing evidence matters

Fahrnow v. E-5 Oilfield Services, 2025 MT 220, involved a hot-oil truck striking Fahrnow after an earlier collision on an icy Montana highway.

Evidence implicated:

roadway ice
vehicle position
driver speed
control of the commercial truck
visibility of the existing hazard
warning devices
Fahrnow's position in the roadway
the truck driver's response to conditions

The Supreme Court reversed summary judgment because reasonable minds could reach different conclusions about comparative negligence and causation.

Test the evidence against Montana's actual driving duties

MCA § 61-8-302 requires a person operating a vehicle on ways open to the public to drive carefully and prudently without unduly or unreasonably endangering others.

MCA § 61-8-303 separately requires a reduced speed no greater than is reasonable and prudent for actual conditions, taking account of traffic, visibility, weather and roadway conditions.

The posted maximum is not always the safe-speed answer. A speed below the posted limit can still be unreasonable for ice, snow, darkness, congestion, poor visibility, curves, stopped traffic or another hazard.

Questions for reconstruction include:

What was each vehicle's actual speed?
Was that speed reasonable for conditions?
When did the hazard become visible?
What sight distance existed?
How much perception and reaction time existed?
When did braking begin?
Was evasive steering attempted?
Which lane was each vehicle occupying?
Were headlights and other lights operating?
Did ice, snow, rain or other surface conditions contribute?
Was a vehicle disabled or obstructing traffic?
Were required or reasonable warnings displayed?

Build the evidence map by source

Scene evidence

Roadway & environment

Photographs, video, measurements, geometry, grade, curvature, sight lines, signs, signals, lighting, weather, pavement condition, debris, tire marks and impact evidence.

Vehicle evidence

The vehicles themselves

Damage patterns, crush, paint transfer, tires, brakes, lights, restraints, airbags, steering, suspension, mechanical condition, electronic modules and post-crash repairs.

Electronic evidence

Digital sources

EDR, telematics, GPS, infotainment records, dash cameras, surveillance video, phones, texts, applications, commercial fleet systems, electronic logs and rideshare records.

Human evidence

People

Drivers, passengers, pedestrians, independent witnesses, first responders, tow operators, repair personnel and investigating officers.

Institutional evidence

Records created by others

CAD and dispatch, 911 recordings, police video, business surveillance, employer files, maintenance records, rental records, carrier records and commercial-driver records.

Medical evidence

Collision and injury relationship

EMS reports, emergency records, symptoms, diagnostic imaging, contemporaneous histories, mechanism of injury and later medical evidence relevant to causation.

The vehicle is evidence—not merely damaged property awaiting repair

When serious injury, disputed liability, mechanical failure, product defect or reconstruction is reasonably foreseeable, repairing, dismantling, selling, salvaging or destroying a vehicle can permanently eliminate evidence.

Before destructive work, consider preserving:

exterior damage
interior occupant-compartment condition
airbag deployment
restraint condition
seat positions
tire condition and pressure
wheels and suspension
brake components
steering components
lighting systems
electronic modules
EDR or crash-event data
infotainment or navigation data
telematics
aftermarket cameras and electronics

Address evidence preservation before salvage transfer. A total-loss settlement can move a vehicle rapidly into auction, dismantling or salvage channels. Inspection and preservation should be evaluated before evidence becomes unavailable.

Digital evidence can disappear without anyone intentionally deleting it

Modern passenger vehicles and commercial fleets can generate information through many independent systems:

event data recorder
airbag control module
engine module
brake module
GPS
telematics
fleet-management platform
ELD system
dash camera
mobile application
cloud account
third-party service provider

Each source can have a different retention period.

Automatic deletion still destroys evidence. The practical response is to identify custodians, retention periods and overwrite cycles early enough to preserve information before those cycles run.

Fahrnow is an important warning—but not a finding that every lost data set is sanctionable spoliation

In Fahrnow, the plaintiff sought default judgment based on loss of EDR, telematics and black-box information from E-5's hot-oil truck and loss of an employee's physical personnel file.

The Supreme Court affirmed denial of the requested default sanction.

Among the facts considered:

the hot-oil truck burned in an accidental fire roughly two months after the crash;
GPS information maintained by an outside vendor was automatically deleted after 90 days;
that deletion occurred before E-5 had notice that Fahrnow intended to pursue the negligence claim;
other evidence remained from which speed could be estimated; and
the lost employment material caused little prejudice because E-5 admitted the employee was acting within the course and scope of employment.

Fahrnow's practical lesson: preserve important data early, but do not call every unavailable record “spoliation.” The legal inquiry asks whether a preservation duty existed, whether it was breached, and what prejudice the loss actually caused.

The preservation duty can arise before a complaint is filed

Montana State University-Bozeman

Montana State University-Bozeman v. First Judicial District Court, 2018 MT 220, defines spoliation as material alteration, destruction, or failure to preserve evidence for use in pending or future litigation.

Montana explained that Rules of Civil Procedure 26 through 37 give rise to a preservation duty when the party controlling the evidence knows or reasonably should know that the evidence may be relevant to pending or reasonably foreseeable adverse litigation.

The standard is objective and fact-specific. Future litigation need not be imminent, but an abstract possibility or generalized fear that someone someday might sue does not by itself create a preservation duty.

When the duty does arise, it concerns then-existing items or information reasonably likely to be relevant to the contemplated claims or defenses.

Reasonable preservation can require suspending ordinary deletion, recycling, overwriting or document-destruction practices.

A party cannot simply declare potentially relevant evidence worthless and destroy it

In Spotted Horse v. BNSF Railway Co., 2015 MT 148, video from the work area where the plaintiff was injured was overwritten despite circumstances giving rise to preservation concerns.

Montana rejected the proposition that a sophisticated recurring litigant could unilaterally determine which evidence was relevant or valuable before the opposing party had a meaningful opportunity to evaluate it.

Preserve first; litigate relevance and admissibility later. Once preservation obligations exist, unilateral destruction can deprive the opposing party and the court of the ability to evaluate the evidence at all.

Spoliation remedies depend on who destroyed the evidence and why it matters

Evidence destroyed by a party to the case

Montana generally addresses direct-party spoliation through the trial court's procedural and evidentiary powers rather than creating a separate tort claim between the parties.

Available remedies can depend on the violation, culpability and prejudice and may include:

additional discovery
cost or fee consequences
evidentiary restrictions
adverse or remedial instructions where legally justified
facts established for litigation purposes
other Rule 37 remedies
terminating sanctions in sufficiently extreme circumstances

Third-party destruction is different

Oliver v. Stimson Lumber Co., 1999 MT 328, recognized an independent negligent-spoliation cause of action in appropriate circumstances against a third party who is outside the litigation-sanction structure.

That claim has demanding elements, including a legal or contractual duty to preserve, destruction, significant impairment of the underlying action, causation, a significant possibility of success in the underlying action, and damages.

Do not assume missing evidence automatically creates a tort or a terminating sanction. Duty, breach, causation, prejudice, control, intent, proportionality and available alternative proof all matter.

Default judgment is an extreme spoliation sanction

Montana State University-Bozeman and Fahrnow emphasize Montana's preference for resolving cases on their merits.

A party seeking default based on spoliation must establish, among other things:

the opposing party had a duty to preserve the evidence;
the duty was breached; and
the loss caused significant prejudice.

The conduct also must be sufficiently serious to justify the extraordinary sanction requested.

“Evidence is gone” is the beginning of the analysis, not the end. Ask when the duty arose, who controlled the evidence, how it disappeared, whether deletion was routine or intentional, what alternative proof exists, and how the loss actually affects the case.

A preservation notice should identify the threatened evidence specifically

A generic request to preserve evidence is better than silence, but a serious crash usually permits a more useful targeted notice.

Potential preservation targets:

vehicle in post-crash condition
EDR data
airbag-control-module data
other vehicle modules
telematics
GPS
fleet-management records
dash-camera footage
surveillance video
mobile-phone data
texts and communications
rideshare records
delivery-platform records
commercial ELD records
driver logs
inspection records
maintenance records
repair records
employment records
training records
dispatch records
route records
adjuster photographs
appraiser photographs
recorded statements
911 recordings
body-camera video
patrol dash-camera video
tow-yard records
salvage records

Preservation and production are different. A custodian may have an obligation to preserve evidence even though a subpoena, discovery request, public-record procedure, authorization, court order or other process later may be required to obtain it.

When does formal crash reconstruction become important?

Reconstruction becomes particularly useful when accounts conflict or when speed, sight distance, reaction time, lane position, vehicle dynamics, mechanical condition or collision forces materially affect liability or causation.

A reconstruction may use:

scene measurements
vehicle crush measurements
photogrammetry
EDR data
vehicle specifications
tire marks
debris distribution
final-rest positions
road grade
friction evidence
video timing
signal timing
weather data
visibility analysis
illumination analysis
human-factors analysis

Wheaton v. Bradford

Wheaton v. Bradford, 2013 MT 121, 370 Mont. 93, 300 P.3d 1162, illustrates the role of qualified reconstruction testimony and computer simulation in disputed crash mechanics.

Montana affirmed admission of the reconstruction expert's testimony after examining the factual foundation and scientific reliability of the methodology.

Correct citation: Wheaton v. Bradford is 2013 MT 121—not 2013 MT 38.

Medical records can also contain crash evidence

Medical documentation serves more than a damages function.

Early records can preserve contemporaneous information concerning:

reported mechanism of injury
seat position
direction of impact
loss of consciousness
airbag deployment
body-region contact
immediate symptoms
neurological findings
objective trauma findings

Do not rewrite history later. Contemporaneous records often carry evidentiary importance precisely because they were created before litigation narratives hardened.

Evidence can be relevant to investigation without being admissible to prove fault

Montana's seat-belt statute is a clear example.

MCA § 61-13-106 states that evidence of compliance or failure to comply with Montana's seat-belt-use requirement is not admissible in a civil personal-injury or property-damage action resulting from use or operation of a motor vehicle.

The statute also states that failure to comply does not constitute negligence.

Evidence collection and legal admissibility are separate questions. Preserve the factual record accurately; then determine what Montana law permits the judge or jury to consider for a particular purpose.

Citizen crash-investigation workflow

Protect life and safety. Call emergency services when appropriate, render reasonable assistance and avoid creating a second collision.

Comply with Montana stop, aid and reporting duties. Remain as required, exchange information and notify law enforcement when the statutory threshold is met.

Identify every person, vehicle and organization. Include drivers, owners, passengers, pedestrians, employers, businesses, governmental entities and contractors.

Photograph the entire environment. Capture wide context first, then vehicle damage, road marks, traffic controls and individual evidence.

Locate independent witnesses. Obtain names, phone numbers and contact information before people leave.

Identify nearby cameras immediately. Businesses, houses, doorbells, fleets and other vehicles may have video that is overwritten within days.

Identify electronic-data sources. Determine whether vehicles, phones, commercial systems, ELDs, cameras, telematics or applications may contain useful information.

Preserve damaged vehicles where warranted. Serious or disputed crashes may require inspection before repair, dismantling, salvage, auction or title transfer.

Send targeted preservation notices. Identify specific physical and electronic evidence and known retention or overwrite cycles.

Obtain the complete law-enforcement file. Request the report plus qualifying supplements, witness statements, photographs, video, measurements, diagrams and other investigative material.

Do not treat the police conclusion as final. Compare it against physical evidence, witnesses, digital records, vehicle evidence and Montana driving duties.

Create a collision timeline. Reconstruct pre-impact movement, perception, reaction, braking, impact, post-impact movement and emergency response.

Test every comparative-fault allegation. Identify evidence supporting and contradicting each claimed negligent act.

Determine whether expert reconstruction is justified. Death, serious injury, commercial vehicles, disputed speed, poor visibility, mechanical issues or conflicting accounts can justify professional analysis.

Keep original digital files intact. Preserve original photographs, video, messages, exports and metadata. Work from copies when practical.

Build an evidence index. Record what exists, who controls it, retention risk, location, requests made and whether preservation has been confirmed.

Crash evidence index

Evidence	Likely custodian	Preservation risk
Vehicle	Owner, insurer, tow yard, salvage company	Repair, dismantling, auction, transfer or destruction
EDR / vehicle modules	Vehicle owner, operator, insurer or expert	Repair, module replacement, power loss or destruction
Telematics / fleet data	Fleet operator or service provider	Automatic retention and deletion schedules
Dash-camera video	Driver, employer, fleet or camera provider	Loop recording or cloud overwrite
Business surveillance	Nearby business	Often overwritten quickly
Phone / app records	Driver, device, carrier or platform	Deletion, device replacement and cloud retention
911 / CAD / dispatch	Public agency	Agency retention schedule
Police video	Law-enforcement agency	Agency retention schedule
Witness memory	Individual witness	Memory fades and contact information changes
Roadway evidence	Physical scene	Weather, traffic, cleanup and maintenance alter the scene

Common crash-investigation mistakes

Treating the police report as the entire investigation.
Assuming a citation decides civil fault.
Describing every police report as statutorily inadmissible.
Failing to distinguish the driver's § 61-7-109 report from the officer's report.
Failing to photograph the overall scene.
Taking only close-up damage photographs.
Failing to locate independent witnesses.
Waiting weeks to search for surveillance video.
Allowing a significant vehicle to enter salvage before inspection.
Failing to preserve EDR or telematics information.
Ignoring commercial fleet or employer data.
Ignoring outside vendors who hold digital evidence.
Failing to preserve phone or app information.
Assuming electronic evidence exists indefinitely.
Failing to obtain supplemental police material.
Ignoring evidence supporting claimant comparative negligence.
Editing or recompressing the only original digital files.
Confusing preservation with production.
Confusing preservation with admissibility.
Calling every missing record sanctionable spoliation.
Waiting until a lawsuit is filed before considering preservation.
Using seat-belt nonuse as Montana civil negligence evidence.

Montana authority map

Primary Law · MCA §§ 61-7-103 & 61-7-105 Stop, remain, identify and render aid

Establish core statutory duties following crashes involving another person and require identifying information, reasonable aid and, in specified circumstances, remaining until law enforcement permits departure.

Primary Law · MCA §§ 61-7-106 & 61-7-107 Unattended vehicles and highway property

Establish separate duties after striking an unattended vehicle or fixtures and other property legally upon or adjacent to the highway.

Primary Law · MCA § 61-7-108 Immediate law-enforcement notice

Requires immediate notice for crashes involving injury, death, striking a deceased person, or apparent property damage of $1,000 or more.

Primary Law · MCA § 61-7-109 Driver and law-enforcement written reports

Requires a qualifying driver report within 10 days unless law enforcement investigated and reported the crash; separately requires the investigating officer to forward a qualifying report within 10 days after completing the investigation. Subsection (5) bars use at trial of reports required by subsections (1) and (2).

Primary Law · MCA § 61-7-114 Confidentiality and access

Makes required crash reports and supplemental information generally confidential while allowing specified involved persons, representatives, insurers and litigants to inspect and copy qualifying law-enforcement reports, supplements and witness statements without a court order.

Primary Law · MCA §§ 61-8-302 & 61-8-303 Careful operation and speed for actual conditions

Require careful and prudent vehicle operation and a speed no greater than reasonable and prudent for traffic, visibility, weather and road conditions.

Primary Law · MCA § 27-1-702 Comparative negligence

Makes evidence concerning the conduct and causation of all participants important because claimant negligence can reduce or, above the statutory threshold, bar recovery.

Primary Law · MCA § 61-13-106 Seat-belt evidence

Provides that seat-belt compliance or noncompliance is not admissible in specified civil motor-vehicle personal-injury and property-damage cases and that noncompliance does not constitute negligence.

Montana Supreme Court Oliver v. Stimson Lumber Co., 1999 MT 328, 297 Mont. 336, 993 P.2d 11

Explains the importance of evidence preservation, declines to create a separate direct-party spoliation tort where litigation sanctions exist, and recognizes negligent spoliation against a qualifying third party under demanding elements.

Montana Supreme Court Wheaton v. Bradford, 2013 MT 121, 370 Mont. 93, 300 P.3d 1162

Vehicle-crash authority affirming admission of qualified accident reconstruction testimony and computer simulation after analysis of factual foundation and scientific reliability.

Montana Supreme Court Spotted Horse v. BNSF Railway Co., 2015 MT 148, 379 Mont. 314, 350 P.3d 52

Important preservation authority involving overwritten video. Montana rejected unilateral destruction of potentially relevant evidence by a sophisticated recurring litigant and required meaningful consideration of sanctions for resulting prejudice.

Montana Supreme Court Montana State University-Bozeman v. First Judicial District Court, 2018 MT 220, 392 Mont. 458, 426 P.3d 541

Defines spoliation and explains that the preservation duty arises when adverse litigation becomes reasonably foreseeable. The standard is objective and fact-specific, and the preservation scope extends to then-existing information reasonably likely to be relevant.

Montana Supreme Court Depositors Insurance Co. v. Sandidge, 2022 MT 33, 407 Mont. 385, 504 P.3d 477

Held the vehicle crash report offered there to establish liability inadmissible hearsay. The decision illustrates why a police report is not itself a substitute for admissible liability evidence.

Montana Supreme Court Fahrnow v. E-5 Oilfield Services, 2025 MT 220, 424 Mont. 229, 577 P.3d 1107

Recent Montana vehicle case involving disputed comparative negligence and alleged loss of commercial-truck EDR, telematics and employment evidence. Reversed summary judgment on liability but affirmed denial of the requested default spoliation sanction because the necessary showing of duty, breach and significant prejudice was not established.

Source-control rule: Current Montana statutes and official court opinions control. This guide summarizes the law for public education; verify the operative statute, complete opinion, procedural rules, evidence rules, local reporting procedure, and current treatment before legal reliance.

Frequently asked questions

Does the police crash report decide who was legally at fault?

No. It can be an important investigative source, but civil liability is determined from admissible evidence and governing law.

Are all Montana police crash reports statutorily inadmissible?

No. MCA § 61-7-109(5) expressly applies to reports required by subsections (1) and (2)—the driver's required report and supplemental reports—not the law-enforcement report separately required by subsection (3). Police-created material remains subject to the Montana Rules of Evidence.

Why was the crash report excluded in Depositors v. Sandidge?

The Montana Supreme Court held the report offered there to prove liability was inadmissible hearsay. The case does not mean every underlying officer observation, photograph or measurement automatically has the same evidentiary status.

When must a Montana crash be reported immediately?

MCA § 61-7-108 requires immediate notice when the crash involves injury, death, striking a deceased person, or apparent property damage of $1,000 or more.

Do I have to file my own written Montana crash report?

Section 61-7-109 generally requires a qualifying driver report within 10 days unless law enforcement investigated and reported the crash as provided in subsection (3).

How quickly must the investigating officer submit the report?

For a qualifying investigation under § 61-7-109(3), the officer must forward the written report to the Department within 10 days after completing the investigation.

Can I obtain a Montana crash report even though it is confidential?

Yes, if you fall within a statutory access category. People named in or involved in the crash, qualifying representatives, their insurance carriers, parties to resulting civil litigation and specified estate representatives are among the categories listed in § 61-7-114.

Should a totaled vehicle be preserved?

When serious injury, disputed liability, reconstruction, mechanical failure or other material evidence issues are reasonably foreseeable, inspection and preservation should be evaluated before repair, dismantling, auction or destruction.

What is an EDR?

An event data recorder is a vehicle system that may record specified information around a qualifying event. Depending on the vehicle, other modules, telematics systems or outside providers may hold additional data.

When does Montana's duty to preserve evidence begin?

It can begin before a lawsuit is filed, when adverse litigation becomes reasonably foreseeable. The determination is objective and highly fact-specific; a mere abstract possibility of litigation is not enough.

Does every missing electronic record amount to spoliation?

No. The analysis includes whether a preservation duty had arisen, who controlled the information, how it disappeared, whether reasonable preservation steps were required, what alternative proof exists and what prejudice resulted.

What did Fahrnow decide about lost truck data?

The Supreme Court affirmed denial of the requested default sanction. The truck had burned accidentally, some outside-vendor information had been routinely deleted before notice of the claim, and the plaintiff did not establish the duty, breach and significant prejudice needed for the extreme sanction sought.

What is the correct citation for Wheaton v. Bradford?

Wheaton v. Bradford, 2013 MT 121, 370 Mont. 93, 300 P.3d 1162.

Can seat-belt nonuse be used as comparative-negligence evidence?

No under MCA § 61-13-106 in the civil motor-vehicle personal-injury or property-damage actions covered by that statute. The evidence is inadmissible for that purpose and noncompliance does not constitute negligence.

← Previous: Comparative Fault Return to Montana's 50-percent rule, multiple defendants, negligence per se and allocation of crash responsibility. Next: Crash Damages → Move from liability evidence to medical expenses, wage loss, future damages, noneconomic harm and property-loss valuation.