CROSSOVER: No Control, No Spoliation: Mandamus Undoes Case-Killing Sanctions for Evidence Outside a Party’s Reach

In Re Secure Collateral Management, LLC, 14-26-00843-CV, November 10, 2026.

On appeal from 11th District Court, Harris County, Texas

Synopsis

A Texas court may impose spoliation sanctions only upon proof that the party had a duty to preserve material evidence within its possession or control and intentionally or negligently breached that duty. Because the record did not establish that Secure Collateral had the requisite notice and ability to preserve the dash-camera video before its automatic deletion, the trial court abused its discretion by striking six affirmative defenses; the Fourteenth Court of Appeals conditionally granted mandamus relief.

Relevance to Family Law

The decision applies directly to preservation disputes involving text messages, social-media content, cloud accounts, surveillance recordings, financial records, electronically stored information, and data held by third parties. In divorce, custody, and property cases, the threshold question is not simply whether missing evidence was important. The movant must establish when the opposing party reasonably anticipated litigation, whether the evidence was then within that party’s possession or control—including through a legal right to obtain it from an agent or representative—and whether the party intentionally or negligently failed to preserve it.

That distinction is particularly important when evidence is held by a spouse’s employer, bank, accountant, business entity, property manager, private investigator, forensic expert, parenting application, security-system provider, or another third party. A contractual relationship, reporting right, or general ability to request information does not dispense with the need to prove a preservation duty tied to anticipated litigation and legally cognizable control over the particular evidence.

Case Summary

Fact Summary

Lartisa Hollie alleged that she was injured during the repossession of her vehicle. Secure Collateral Management, LLC was a forwarding company that retained TXTrak Recovery, LLC as the bank’s repossession agent. TXTrak assigned a tow-truck driver to conduct the repossession.

The truck had a cloud-based camera system consisting of an exterior rear-facing camera and a dash camera directed toward the truck’s cab. TXTrak retrieved and preserved a one-minute clip from the exterior camera. No dash-camera footage was retrieved, however, and the cloud system automatically deleted unretrieved video after 30 days.

Hollie sought spoliation sanctions, contending that the dash-camera footage could have shown what the driver was doing during the incident and when he became aware of her presence. The trial court found that the footage was material and that the defendants had intentionally breached their respective preservation duties. As a sanction, it struck six affirmative defenses.

Secure Collateral challenged the order by mandamus. It maintained that it did not control the truck, the camera system, the driver, or the third-party company that managed the video system. It also asserted that it did not learn about the incident until it was added to the lawsuit—nearly a year after the footage had been automatically deleted.

Hollie relied on Secure Collateral’s service agreement with TXTrak. That agreement required TXTrak to report completed repossessions and authorized Secure Collateral to request certain compliance, performance, and operational reports. Based on those provisions, the trial court found that Secure Collateral had notice of anticipated litigation by the day after the repossession and had contractual authority to obtain or preserve the video.

The appellate record did not establish, however, that TXTrak informed Secure Collateral—before the footage was deleted—that Hollie had been struck or injured. Although a TXTrak owner testified that he anticipated litigation and promptly directed an employee to retrieve video, the cited evidence did not show that this information was communicated to Secure Collateral within the 30-day retention period.

Issues Decided

• Whether Secure Collateral had a duty to preserve the dash-camera footage before it was automatically deleted.

• Whether the contractual relationship between Secure Collateral and TXTrak established possession or control sufficient to support spoliation sanctions.

• Whether the record supported a finding that Secure Collateral knew or reasonably should have known there was a substantial chance of litigation while the footage remained available.

• Whether striking Secure Collateral’s affirmative defenses was an abuse of discretion.

• Whether Secure Collateral lacked an adequate remedy by appeal and therefore was entitled to mandamus relief.

Rules Applied

Under Brookshire Bros., Ltd. v. Aldridge, a spoliation finding requires proof that the party had a duty to preserve evidence and intentionally or negligently breached that duty. 438 S.W.3d 9, 14 (Tex. 2014). A preservation duty arises when the party knows or reasonably should know both that there is a substantial chance a claim will be filed and that evidence within its possession or control will be material and relevant to that claim.

Evidence may be within a party’s control even when the party lacks physical possession. Under GTE Communications Systems Corp. v. Tanner, control can exist when the party has a legal right, arising from its relationship with an agent or representative, to obtain the evidence from the person possessing it. 856 S.W.2d 725, 729 (Tex. 1993) (orig. proceeding).

A trial court has discretion to remedy proven spoliation, including in appropriate circumstances through severe sanctions. But Brookshire Brothers requires a direct relationship between the sanction and the spoliating conduct, and the sanction cannot be excessive. Striking claims or defenses is a death-penalty sanction requiring particularly careful scrutiny. See Petroleum Solutions, Inc. v. Head, 454 S.W.3d 482, 489 (Tex. 2014).

Actual notice that a lawsuit has already been filed is not necessary to trigger preservation obligations. See National Tank Co. v. Brotherton, 851 S.W.2d 193, 204 (Tex. 1993). Nevertheless, the party must have enough information to know or reasonably anticipate a substantial chance of a claim concerning the event.

Mandamus relief is available when the trial court clearly abuses its discretion and the relator lacks an adequate remedy by appeal. In re Prudential Insurance Co. of America, 148 S.W.3d 124, 135–38 (Tex. 2004) (orig. proceeding). A court has no discretion to misapply governing law, and the adequacy of an appellate remedy depends on a practical balancing of the benefits and detriments of immediate review.

Application

The Fourteenth Court focused on the information available to Secure Collateral before the dash-camera footage disappeared. TXTrak’s owner knew about the injury-producing incident, anticipated litigation, and directed an employee to obtain video. But the knowledge of a separate contracting entity did not, on this record, establish that Secure Collateral itself knew or reasonably should have known about the incident during the footage’s 30-day retention period.

The service agreement required TXTrak to report completed repossessions and allowed Secure Collateral to demand certain operational and compliance information. The trial court treated those provisions as establishing both notice of the incident and authority over the video. The appellate court found that reasoning unsupported because notice that a repossession had been completed was not necessarily notice that a person had been struck and injured or that litigation was substantially likely.

The court assumed without deciding that Secure Collateral’s contractual rights might have allowed it to obtain and preserve the footage. Even under that assumption, a preservation duty could not arise without evidence that Secure Collateral knew or reasonably should have known of the injury-producing event before the automatic deletion. The record did not show that TXTrak communicated that information to Secure Collateral in time.

Accordingly, Secure Collateral’s failure to ask for the dash-camera video could not support a spoliation finding merely because the contract gave it rights to request operational information. The necessary connection among anticipated litigation, material evidence, and the party’s possession or control was missing. Without a supported preservation duty, there could be no intentional or negligent breach of that duty.

Holding

The trial court abused its discretion by finding that Secure Collateral spoliated the dash-camera footage. The record did not establish that Secure Collateral had sufficient notice of the incident and the substantial chance of litigation before the footage was automatically deleted. Nor did the contractual relationship, standing alone, supply the missing proof necessary to impose a preservation duty concerning the particular recording.

The order striking six affirmative defenses could not stand because the predicate spoliation finding was unsupported. Given the case-altering effect of striking those defenses and the resulting impairment of Secure Collateral’s ability to present its case, an ordinary appeal was inadequate. The Fourteenth Court of Appeals therefore conditionally granted mandamus relief.

Practical Application

Family-law litigators should separate four questions that are sometimes collapsed into a generalized allegation that relevant evidence has disappeared:

1. When did the party reasonably anticipate litigation? Identify a specific event, communication, demand, filing, or circumstance showing a substantial chance that a claim would be asserted.

2. What evidence existed at that time? Establish the evidence’s source, format, location, retention period, and relevance.

3. Did the party possess or control that evidence? Determine whether the party had physical possession or a legal right, arising from an agency, representative, contractual, or similar relationship, to obtain it.

4. What caused the loss? Prove whether the evidence was intentionally destroyed, negligently allowed to disappear, or deleted through an automated process before any preservation duty arose.

In a custody case, for example, video from a daycare, school, neighbor’s camera, or commercial security provider may be highly relevant. Relevance alone does not establish that either parent controlled the recording. Counsel should promptly subpoena the custodian and investigate whether a parent had account access, ownership rights, or contractual authority to download or preserve the data.

In a divorce involving a closely held business, control may be more complicated. Financial records nominally held by a bookkeeper, accountant, payroll provider, or cloud platform may remain within a spouse’s control if the spouse has authority to direct the agent or obtain the records as an owner or officer. The analysis should address the spouse’s legal rights over the specific information, not merely the existence of a general business relationship.

For text messages, email, social-media content, and shared cloud accounts, determine who owned the account, who possessed login credentials, whether exports or backups were available, and when routine deletion occurred. A party should not be sanctioned merely because a service provider once possessed relevant data, but a party with access and a right to retrieve that data may have preservation obligations once litigation is reasonably anticipated.

The case also matters when requesting severe sanctions. Striking pleadings, claims, or defenses requires more than a showing that evidence would have been useful. The movant should develop a record addressing duty, control, breach, culpability, prejudice, and the relationship between the missing evidence and the proposed sanction. Conversely, counsel opposing sanctions should attack each element separately rather than treating the dispute as a single question about relevance.

Checklists

Issuing a Family-Law Preservation Notice

• Identify the claims or disputed issues that make litigation substantially likely.

• Describe the categories of evidence to be preserved with reasonable specificity.

• Include text messages, email, social-media data, photographs, videos, call logs, location data, financial records, and cloud backups as applicable.

• Identify devices, accounts, applications, businesses, agents, and third-party custodians likely to hold relevant information.

• Determine whether any source uses automatic deletion or a limited retention period.

• Request suspension of routine deletion settings where the recipient has authority to do so.

• Send separate subpoenas or preservation requests to third-party custodians when the opposing party may not control the evidence.

• Preserve proof of delivery and the date on which notice was received.

Establishing Possession or Control

• Identify who physically possessed the evidence during the relevant period.

• Obtain the governing contract, agency agreement, account terms, company policy, or authorization document.

• Determine whether the party had a legal right to demand the specific evidence.

• Distinguish a right to obtain records from a general right to request reports or information.

• Determine whether the custodian was the party’s agent, representative, employee, contractor, or an independent third party.

• Identify who held account credentials or administrative permissions.

• Confirm whether the party could download, export, copy, or direct preservation of the information.

• Develop evidence showing when the party’s right of access began and ended.

Building a Spoliation Motion

• Establish the date on which the responding party knew or reasonably should have known there was a substantial chance of litigation.

• Prove that the disputed evidence existed when the preservation duty arose.

• Establish that the evidence was material and relevant to the anticipated claims.

• Prove physical possession or a legally enforceable right to obtain the evidence.

• Document the applicable retention policy and deletion timeline.

• Identify the specific act or omission that caused the loss.

• Address whether the failure was intentional or negligent.

• Explain the prejudice caused by the loss and whether substitute evidence exists.

• Tailor the requested remedy to the specific evidence and resulting prejudice.

• Explain why a lesser remedy would or would not be sufficient.

Opposing Spoliation Sanctions

• Challenge the asserted date on which litigation became reasonably foreseeable.

• Separate notice of an underlying event from notice that the event created a substantial chance of litigation.

• Determine whether another person’s or entity’s knowledge can legally be attributed to the responding party.

• Contest unsupported assumptions that a general contractual relationship created control over the specific evidence.

• Establish when automatic deletion occurred and whether it preceded the preservation duty.

• Identify evidence showing the party lacked access, credentials, ownership, or authority over the data.

• Present substitute evidence that reduces or eliminates claimed prejudice.

• Object when the requested sanction lacks a direct relationship to the alleged loss.

• Preserve complaints regarding both the spoliation finding and the severity of the sanction.

• Evaluate mandamus when the order strikes pleadings, claims, defenses, or otherwise materially distorts the trial.

Preserving Electronic Evidence in Divorce and Custody Cases

• Send preservation instructions to the client at the beginning of the engagement.

• Disable automatic deletion for relevant messages, email, applications, and cloud accounts.

• Preserve original devices when authenticity, metadata, or deleted information may be disputed.

• Use forensic collection methods when ordinary screenshots may be incomplete.

• Preserve shared calendar entries, parenting-app communications, and location information.

• Download bank, brokerage, retirement, payroll, and accounting records before retention periods expire.

• Identify security-camera, doorbell-camera, vehicle-camera, and smart-home recordings immediately.

• Avoid altering file names, metadata, timestamps, or native formats.

• Maintain a collection log identifying who preserved each item, when, and how.

• Consider early third-party discovery when the client does not control the evidence.

Family Law Crossover

In re Secure Collateral Management establishes a procedural framework for determining whether missing evidence supports spoliation relief. The trial court must first decide whether the party had a preservation duty by identifying when litigation became reasonably foreseeable and whether the material evidence was then within that party’s possession or control. Control may arise through a legal right to obtain evidence from an agent or representative, but the relationship must be tied to the specific evidence at issue.

In family-law proceedings, the issue may arise through a motion for sanctions, a request for a spoliation instruction, a motion to strike pleadings or defenses, or an evidentiary dispute concerning missing electronically stored information. The court should receive evidence concerning notice, ownership, account access, contractual rights, agency, retention periods, deletion settings, and the availability of substitutes before selecting a remedy. If the trial court imposes case-determinative sanctions without a legally and factually supported preservation duty, mandamus may be available when waiting for a final appeal would not adequately protect the affected party’s right to present its case.

Citation

In re Secure Collateral Management, LLC, No. 14-26-00843-CV (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] Nov. 10, 2026, orig. proceeding) (mem. op.).

Full Opinion

Read the full opinion in In re Secure Collateral Management, LLC.

~~8e116d6d-7963-4840-986b-249e479783af~~