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The NAM filed an amicus brief in the Georgia Supreme Court supporting Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. in an appeal of a product liability judgement and urging the court to apply objective spoliation standards equally to plaintiffs and defendants. In the underlying product liability case alleging a tire tread separation, the plaintiff preserved as evidence only the “carcass” of the tire and allowed parts of the detached tread, the wheel, the three other tires and the vehicle to be destroyed. The destroyed evidence would have allowed Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. to better defend itself. The NAM’s brief argued that a different spoliation standard for plaintiffs and defendants improperly skews the scales of justice, will make product defect claims harder to defend and could result in false findings of defect that can lead to redesigns of products in ways that are less safe. The court held that the plaintiff has a duty to prevent spoliation of evidence only when a reasonable person would do so while the defendant must preserve evidence whenever it can be anticipated that a person could be contemplating litigation.