Most people assume that if the facts are on their side, the facts will be there when they need them. They will not. Evidence in an injury case has a shelf life, and much of it is measured in days.

Store surveillance systems overwrite themselves. 911 recordings are purged on a schedule. A wrecked car gets sold for scrap, and the crash data inside its computer goes with it. A trucking company's driver logs can legally be destroyed after a few months. The witness who saw everything moves to Indiana.

I spent 19 years investigating cases as a Dayton police officer before I became a lawyer, and the lesson from both careers is the same: the side that moves first on evidence usually wins. This chapter of The Ohio Personal Injury Guide covers what evidence exists, how fast it disappears, and how to keep it.

Photos and video: yours, right now

Chapter 1, The First 72 Hours, explains what to photograph at the scene. If you could not do it then, do it now. Vehicles at the tow lot or body shop. Your injuries as they heal (and as bruising darkens, which is often worse on day three than day one). Your cast, brace, stitches, walker. The medications on your counter.

Go back to the scene

Within a few days, if you are able, return to the spot at the same time of day and in similar weather. Photograph sight lines, the sequence of the traffic light, how far back a stop sign is visible, where a hedge blocks the view of cross traffic. For a fall, photograph the same step, the same floor, the same parking lot pothole, before it is repaired. If the property owner fixes the hazard after you fall, that is good for the next customer, but your pictures from before the repair are what prove the condition existed.

Witnesses

Get names and numbers at the scene if at all possible. If you missed someone, the crash report may list them, nearby businesses may know regulars who were present, and a lawyer can canvass. Contact witnesses promptly and politely, ask them to write down or record what they saw, and do not coach them. An independent witness who has no stake in the outcome is the most persuasive evidence there is.

911 recordings and dispatch logs

The 911 call captures the moment: who called, what they said, how upset they were, what the other driver admitted in the background. Dispatch logs show when police and medics were called and when they arrived. These are public records in Ohio, but retention is short, often measured in months and sometimes less. Request them early, in writing, from the dispatch center for the county or city where the injury happened.

Surveillance, doorbell, and business cameras

Almost every intersection in the Dayton area is within view of a camera: a gas station, a bank, a fast-food drive-through, a traffic camera, a Ring doorbell on a house. Those systems record over themselves, commonly every 24 to 72 hours for small systems and a few weeks for larger ones. Nobody is going to save that footage for you unless they are asked.

The fastest way to preserve it is a written request, delivered within days, identifying the date, time, and camera and asking the owner to retain the footage. A lawyer will send a formal preservation letter (more below), but if you are able to walk into the business the next day and ask the manager to hold the video, do it.

Dashcams

More cars have dashcams every year, including the other driver's. Ask at the scene. Ask witnesses. Note any rideshare, delivery, or commercial vehicle nearby, since many fleets record continuously. Dashcam video resolves fault disputes in minutes that would otherwise take a year of litigation.

The vehicle's black box and the preservation letter

Nearly every modern vehicle has an event data recorder, often called a black box. In a crash it captures the seconds before impact: speed, braking, throttle, steering, seat-belt use. That data can prove the other driver was going 55 in a 35 and never touched the brakes.

The data lives in the vehicle. When the insurer declares the car a total loss, it is sold to a salvage auction and crushed or parted out, and the data is gone. This can happen within two or three weeks of the crash.

A preservation letter, sometimes called a spoliation letter, is a formal written demand to the other driver, their insurer, the tow yard, and the salvage company, telling them that litigation is likely and that the vehicle and its data must be preserved. It should go out as soon as possible, which is one of the main reasons to talk to a lawyer early. Do not let your own vehicle be destroyed either; your car's data and damage profile are evidence too.

Phone records in distracted-driving cases

If you believe the other driver was on their phone, that can be proven. Cell carriers keep call, text, and data logs that show activity at the second of the crash. The driver's phone itself holds even more. But carriers keep records for a limited time, and the driver's phone will be replaced or wiped. A preservation letter to the driver and a subpoena to the carrier, once a lawsuit is filed, are how this evidence is captured. See our page on distracted driving crashes for more.

Trucking cases: logs, ELD data, and maintenance

Commercial truck crashes involve a layer of evidence that does not exist in ordinary car crashes. Federal safety rules require motor carriers to keep driver hours-of-service logs, now recorded by electronic logging devices (ELDs); driver qualification files; drug and alcohol testing records; inspection and maintenance records; and dispatch and delivery records. Many trucks also carry forward-facing and driver-facing cameras and telematics that track speed and hard braking.

Here is the problem: the federal rules require carriers to keep much of this material for only months, not years. After that, it can be lawfully destroyed. Trucking companies and their insurers also send investigators to the scene within hours, long before most injured people have talked to anyone. A preservation letter to the carrier within days of a truck crash is essential. Our Dayton truck accident lawyer page explains how these cases differ.

Premises cases: incident reports and store video

If you fell at a store or restaurant, the business almost certainly created an internal incident report, and it almost certainly has video of the area. You will not be given either one voluntarily. Ask the manager, in writing, to preserve both, and have a lawyer follow with a formal letter. Also ask for maintenance, inspection, and cleaning logs for that day. Whether the owner knew about the hazard and how long it was there are the central questions in a premises liability case, and those logs answer them.

Medical records

Your records are evidence you control. Request them from every provider as you go, and request the complete chart, not just the summary. Imaging should be requested on disc. The chapter on Preserving Documents and Records covers what to collect and how to organize it.

What happens when the other side destroys evidence

Ohio takes destruction of evidence seriously. The Supreme Court of Ohio has recognized a separate tort, meaning a separate claim for money damages, for interference with or destruction of evidence. Smith v. Howard Johnson Co., 67 Ohio St.3d 28 (1993). To win it, an injured person must show that litigation was pending or probable, that the defendant knew it, that the defendant willfully destroyed evidence designed to disrupt the case, that the case was in fact disrupted, and that damages resulted. The claim can be brought against the other party or against a third party, and it can be brought in the same lawsuit as the injury claim.

Notice the second element: the defendant has to know that litigation is probable. That is exactly what a preservation letter establishes. Once a trucking company, a store, or an insurer has been told in writing to preserve the video or the vehicle, destroying it anyway is no longer an innocent mistake. Courts can also instruct a jury that missing evidence would have been unfavorable to the party that lost it. None of these remedies is as good as having the evidence, which is why speed matters more than anything else in this chapter.

Key takeaways

  • Evidence disappears in days: video is overwritten, 911 audio is purged, vehicles are crushed, logs are lawfully destroyed.
  • Photograph the scene, the vehicles, the hazard, and your injuries, and go back to the scene if you can.
  • Get witness contact information early and ask businesses to hold their video right away.
  • A preservation letter protects black-box data, phone records, trucking logs, and store video, and it puts the other side on notice.
  • Ohio recognizes a claim for willful destruction of evidence, but the best protection is to preserve it first.

This article is general information about Ohio law, not legal advice about your situation. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Deadlines and rules change; talk to a lawyer about your specific case.