Question

A lawyer regularly represents a manufacturer of electric kitchen appliances. One morning the president of the manufacturing company called the lawyer and asked if the lawyer had seen the newspaper story about a woman who was electrocuted when she opened the door of her dishwasher. The company president stated that he believed the dishwasher was one that his company had manufactured. The company president also stated that he found some quality control records from that period which reflected that some dishwashers left the plant without proper testing. He continued that the records should have been shredded, but somehow had been overlooked, and said that he intended to send the records to the shredder immediately unless the lawyer told him that he could not. Must the lawyer advise the president to keep the records?

Answer 1

Answer: Yes!

Explanation: The lawyer should advise him to keep the records in case the company gets sued. According to the American Bar Association model rules of professional conduct, lawyers should never counsel a person to get rid of a material that has potential evidentiary value. Even though there's no certainty that the company will be sued, there are good chances that it will. So, the president must preserve the records until he is certain that the dishwasher in question was not his company's product.