When a driver is on a cell phone at impact, the phone data says so. Call logs, text message metadata, and mobile data connection records from AT&T, Verizon, or T-Mobile can place the at-fault driver's attention off the road at the precise second of the crash. For PI attorneys, mastering the carrier subpoena process, its timing requirements, and the preservation demands that protect it is now a baseline competency.
What Carriers Retain and for How Long
Each major carrier maintains call and text metadata, data connection logs, and location-based records under differing retention windows:
- AT&T: Call records retained up to seven years; text message metadata (not content) up to seven years; data connection logs typically two years.
- Verizon: Call detail records retained for one year; text message records up to one year; IP session records one year.
- T-Mobile: Call detail records two years; text records two years; data logs vary by plan.
These windows are soft minimums. Carriers reserve the right to purge records on shorter cycles under internal data policies. The practical implication: a preservation demand must go out within days of the crash, and a subpoena must follow before the first retention cycle closes.
Structuring the Preservation Demand
Send the preservation demand to the at-fault driver and their carrier simultaneously. Identify the target phone number, the date and approximate time of the crash, and the request to preserve all call logs, text message records, voicemail, cloud backup data, and any third-party application data visible to the carrier. Reference the litigation that is anticipated or pending.
Once the at-fault party receives the demand, any deletion of data is potentially sanctionable spoliation. Courts have awarded adverse inference instructions when defendants wiped or factory-reset phones after preservation demands. At least one district court has imposed terminating sanctions where a defendant's text records were destroyed alongside a cover story about the phone being lost. Act on day one.
App Data: Beyond the Phone Call
Carrier subpoenas produce call and text metadata but not in-app activity. The gap matters because many distracted drivers are not calling or texting: they are in Snapchat, Instagram, or a navigation app. Third-party app data requires a separate subpoena served on the platform provider. Snap Inc., Meta, and Google each maintain civil litigation response portals that accept properly formatted subpoenas.
Google Timeline and location history records can show whether a driver was actively interacting with a navigation app at the time of the crash. Apple Health and Google Maps movement data can establish that the phone was in motion and being accessed simultaneously. These records are increasingly available through civil subpoena and powerfully corroborate divided attention.
Do not wait for litigation to identify these providers. At intake, ask the client what apps the at-fault driver appeared to be using, review any dashcam or surveillance footage from the scene, and send parallel preservation demands to app providers on the same day as the carrier demand.
Negligence Per Se: Converting the Subpoena Into Liability
In most states, handheld device use while driving violates a specific safety statute. When the subpoena returns records showing the defendant was actively transmitting data or engaged in a call at impact, plaintiff can argue negligence per se: the statute was enacted to protect road users from precisely this type of harm. The instruction eliminates the need to prove the defendant failed to exercise reasonable care, leaving only causation and damages in dispute.
California Vehicle Code Section 23123.5 is the most litigated vehicle, but comparable statutes exist in nearly every state. Texas Transportation Code Section 545.4251, Illinois Vehicle Code Section 12-610.2, and New York's Vehicle and Traffic Law Section 1225-d each operate as per se negligence predicates when phone records confirm active use at the moment of collision. The intersection of carrier records and these statutes is where distracted driving cases are built into near-certain liability findings at trial.
For additional coverage of how digital evidence developments affect PI case strategy more broadly, see the case law and settlements archive on this site.
Handling Defense Denials and Spoliation
Defense counsel routinely disputes whether a text was actively composed versus simply arriving. Carrier records show outbound and inbound metadata, timestamps, and whether the device registered an active data session at the time. Supplement carrier records with a forensic extraction from the phone itself through a neutral examiner: a consent-based or court-ordered forensic image can pull deleted texts, browser activity, and app session logs not available through the carrier alone.
When phone data has been destroyed after a preservation demand, move for spoliation sanctions before summary judgment. Document the demand, its receipt, and the subsequent data loss through opposing counsel's own admissions in discovery. Courts are increasingly willing to impose adverse inference instructions in distracted driving cases where defendants claim the phone was never used but records have disappeared.
For best practices on managing client and defendant digital evidence across PI cases, the practice operations resources on this site cover intake workflows that build these steps into standard protocol.
Integrating Phone Evidence Into the Trial Record
Carrier records require authentication under Federal Rule of Evidence 902(11) or a state equivalent. A certification from the carrier's records custodian, produced through the subpoena response, typically satisfies the business records exception and permits admission without a live witness. Treat the certification as a required deliverable in every carrier subpoena and follow up with the carrier's legal department if the certification is missing from the production.
At trial, the sequence is straightforward: introduce the police report placing the crash at a precise time, introduce the certified carrier records showing outbound transmission at the same time, and let the jury draw the inference. Distracted driving cases with phone records and a negligence per se instruction settle at substantially higher rates than cases relying on eyewitness accounts alone.
The carrier subpoena is not a silver bullet, but it is close. For PI firms handling high volumes of auto accidents, building a subpoena and preservation demand workflow into the first 48 hours of intake converts a he-said-she-said crash into a documented record of exactly where the defendant's attention was at the moment that mattered.