The state Supreme Court has ruled state police in Uniontown are not liable for destroying evidence in a suspicious death case that heirs of a hunting accident victim years later sought for a civil lawsuit.
The case was filed by the heirs of Daniel E. Pyeritz, 47, who fell 15 feet from a tree to his death while archery hunting on Oct. 30, 2001, on his brother's property near Markleysburg, Fayette County.
Authorities determined that a black nylon tree stand safety harness ripped in two when Pyeritz, of Imperial in Allegheny County accidentally fell off the stand, causing his death. State troopers confiscated the harness as evidence.
According to the lawsuit, an inquest conducted by coroner Dr. Phillip Reilly's office in November 2002 determined the cause of death as an "avoidable accident."
Immediately after the inquest, according to the lawsuit, attorneys for Pyeritz's widow, Dawn, and the couple's two children asked Trooper Daniel Ekis if state police could keep the safety harness in the police evidence room while the family decided whether to pursue a civil case.
"Ekis placed the pieces of the black belt back in the evidence room at the Uniontown barracks and made a notation on a clipboard in the evidence room where the belt was being stored that the belt was to be released either to Appellant Dawn A. Pyeritz or to her counsel (Michelle H. Lally)," according to court documents.
Meanwhile, Ekis was transferred from Uniontown to the Waynesburg station, and in June 2003 the Uniontown barracks relocated to a new building.
"In July 2003, Trooper (James) Custer, with the approval of ... Corporal James Caccimelio, destroyed the two pieces of the belt, presumably pursuant to the State Police Evidence Guidelines, which require within three months after an investigation is completed, the investigating officer is to notify the custodial officer, who is to ensure that any property in State Police custody be returned to the owner, donated to the state Treasury or destroyed," court documents state.
In August 2003, counsel for the Pyeritz family asked for the pieces of the belt to pursue the civil case only to learn they had been destroyed.
A month later, the Pyeritz estate filed a products liability suit in U.S. District Court against two tree stand belt manufacturers using photographs of the belt. That November, the family settled the case for $200,000, according to court documents.
However, in 2004, the Pyeritz estate sued state police and various troopers involved for failing to properly preserve evidence. The lawsuit claimed the failure of police to keep the evidence resulted in "significant impairment of the action against the manufacturers of the belt" because the family could not have expert witnesses examine it and testify later in court proceedings.
In Fayette Common Pleas Court, rulings sided with state police attorneys who argued "that the only recovery available was $19.82, the value of the belt." In 2008, the Pyertzes appealed to Commonwealth Court, which upheld the local court's decision.
Last week, the Supreme Court upheld those decisions. In a 12-page opinion, the court unanimously concluded that "existing Pennsylvania law has not recognized a cause of action for negligent spoliation of evidence, and we decline to do so now."
The judges said such a decision "would create the potential for the proliferation of litigation and would confer a benefit already sufficiently achievable under existing law."
Copyright 2011 Tribune Review Publishing CompanyAll Rights Reserved
