Jerry Aldridge slipped and fell near the rotisserie chicken area of a Brookshire Brothers grocery store. He experienced a spinal injury, and the store began paying for his medical bills. The store had surveillance cameras of that area of the store. However, sometime between the time Mr. Aldridge fell and the trial of his case, 6 minutes of 53 seconds of the surveillance tape were lost. No one is sure why they were lost, and Brookshire explained that it may have accidentally recorded over that segment. Those nearly seven minutes cover the time just prior to Mr. Aldridge’s fall and would have shown whether there were any substances on the floor at the time, if employees saw the substances, and whether they were attempting to clean them up. The judge at the trial allowed Mr. Aldridge’s lawyer to use witnesses to establish that portions of the surveillance video had been lost or destroyed. What effect will this evidence of the lost minutes have on a jury? Why is preserving evidence so important? Are there penalties for the destruction of evidence? What lessons should managers of stores take from this case and the Wal-Mart case in this chapter? [Brookshire Bros., Ltd. v. Aldridge, Not Reported in S. W. 3d, 2010 WL 2982902