By: Monica McCarroll & Stephen E. Anthony
Williams Mullen (North Carolina and virginia, USA)
E.D. Va. Court issues adverse inference jury instruction for intentional bad faith deletion of emails despite the fact that many eventually were recovered from back-up tapes. The prompt issuance of litigation hold notice by counsel precluded default judgment.
Finding that a defendant’s employees “set out to willfully and intentionally, and in bad faith, delete from their computers relevant documents, files, and emails that contained what they believed to be, possibly damaging information to [the Company] . . . [many of which] are not recoverable,” Judge Robert E. Payne, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia, issued an adverse inference jury instruction, wherein the jury could infer that the deleted evidence was helpful to the plaintiff and harmful to the defendant and could be taken into account in assessing defendant’s intent and knowledge as to the underlying allegations of conspiracy to steal and theft of trade secrets. E. I. DuPont v. Kolon Industries, Inc., Civil Action No: 3:09cv58.[1] Opinion 87-88. In addition, the Court awarded the defendant its attorneys’ fees, costs, and expenses related to its motion. Click here to read entire article.
