# Preserve evidence before assigning claim value

**Surfaced:** DoNotCallCompensation research, 2026-09-18.
**From:** Federal authorities linked in [legal feasibility](../research/legal-feasibility.md).

A spam inbox is a discovery surface, not a ledger of statutory violations. Preserve complete two-way context, prove attribution, and review consent before attaching a damages scenario. This project separates immutable evidence, derived events, human findings, legal theories, and received cash.

Why this matters here: a model optimizing claimed dollars would benefit from duplicate counting, suppressing adverse context, assuming maximum enhancements, and guessing defendants. Those actions would damage the actual objective: reliable recovery with low burden.

Reuse this project's guardrail: require source-backed findings and a reviewed theory before valuation; keep unknowns explicit; measure actual net receipts and all human hours. Version rule effective dates and unresolved authority, especially where a rule was vacated or partially waived.

Related: [pilot plan](../plans/2026-09-18-1220-evidence-first-pilot-plan.md), [evidence guide](../evidence-guide.md).