What is the effect of the court's instruction to the jury that a storage company was responsible for the destruction of evidence in a civil case?

Finally, the court instructed the jury that the evidence was destroyed through no fault of either party. Like the other ostensible remedies, the instruction does absolutely nothing to remedy the potential damage to the plaintiff's case. In addition, the instruction was misleading if not false. As a general rule, a principal is responsible for the negligent acts of those who act on his behalf. See, e.g., Prauss v. Adamski, 244 P.2d 598, 603 (Or.1952). Contrary to the instruction's suggestion, the storage company's negligence should, for purposes of the adverse inference rule, be attributed to the defendant.