Sanctions for Post-Filing Computer Destruction
APC Filtration v. Becker, No. 07 C 1462, 2007 WL 3046233 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 12, 2007) (Ashman, J.)
Judge Ashman granted in part plaintiff’s motion for discovery sanctions based upon defendant William Becker’s (“Becker”) disposal of his personal computer, which had allegedly crashed, in a dumpster twenty miles from Becker’s home, after plaintiff filed its Complaint. The Court held that Becker’s post-filing destruction of evidence was in bad faith and ordered sanctions pursuant to the Court’s inherent powers and Fed. R. Civ. P. 37. The Court did not grant a default judgment, but held that the destruction prejudiced plaintiff’s misappropriation claims. And as an intermediate sanction, the Court held that defendant Becker had communications with two third-party customers of plaintiff during Becker’s employment with plaintiff for the purpose of inducing the third parties to enter exclusive agreements with defendant SourceOne Plus, Becker’s new employer. The Court also awarded plaintiff certain related attorney’s fees and costs.
The plantiff failed to mention that they asked for the computer a full month after the computer was thrown out. The computer was taken to a repair shop to be fixed, and was told that it was not worth fixing. This all happened before any request by the plantiff. The 20 miles to dispose of the computer was actually 7 - 10 miles, across from friends house where new construction was happening and dumpsters were available. Many people throw things such as junk into these dumpsters.
Since defendent gave the plantiff all available hard copies of corespondence, etc and since no actual proof of any other information was on computer except for the plantiffs assumptions,and since proof by an actual independent repair shop showed the computer was indeed broke beyond reasonable repair, and since the defendent turned over all other computers used, I think a reasonable person could disagree with the decision.