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Notes -
According to an article in the linked article, the trial court determined that "he’ll instruct the jury that it may presume the text messages were detrimental to the city’s legal position and that there’s significant circumstantial evidence they were deleted intentionally." That isn't all that helpful.
Plus, the plaintiffs might have a tough time prevailing on appeal, given that this is a civil rights action and their claims -- that the city violated their procedural and substantive due process rights and that the city effected a taking of their property -- are clear stretches under current jurisprudence. And there also might be problems proving causation re damages.
Finally, after trial the attorneys fees award would likely be much larger than the damages, so I would not be surprised if the city agreed to settle for damages + attorneys' fees to date.
Yeah, unfortunately there's an absolute charlie foxtrot when it comes to deprivation of rights where the government ignores or merely assists a bad third-party actor: Castle Rock v. Gonzales Warren v. DC, Lozito v. New York City and Riss v. New York (cw: rape, cops being bastards) are just high-profile examples of the general rule against the public duty to protect any individual meaning basically anything, with DeShaney v Winnebago County (cw: child abuse, 'cops' being bastards) showing how close the state's assistance and negligence could get even in the most extreme of harms.
That's why the motion to dismiss phase of this case had already reduced to some esoteric theories of a "right-of-access" taking and "nuisance", while explicitly blocking any direct due process or conventional takings torts. And honestly I'm not sure how strong those theories could have gone.
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