New Jersey’s Attorney General, specifically the Division of Criminal Justice, has been a bit careless it seems. The state body in charge of criminal prosecutions has lost records that it seized during an investigation in 1985. A company sued for the records (or damages resulting from the loss of the records) because it wanted them for another case, and it was discovered that the DCJ couldn’t locate the documents. The New Jersey Appellate Division, in ruling for the State, would not even let the case get to a jury. It held that no rational jury could conclude that the State had been grossly negligent, merely because it failed to properly safeguard evidence.
I kid you not. Your tax dollars at work again.