Default Judgment Warranted by Deliberate and Bad Faith Spoliation, and to Deter Other Would-Be Spoliators
Arista Records, L.L.C. v. Tschirhart, 2006 WL 2728927 (W.D. Tex. Aug. 23, 2006)
In this copyright infringement action based on internet file-sharing activities, plaintiffs sought terminating sanctions against defendant for spoliation of evidence. Plaintiffs alleged that defendant willfully destroyed critical evidence on her computer hard drive after notice of the lawsuit, notice of her obligation to preserve such evidence, and notice of the court’s order to produce her hard drive to plaintiffs so that a duplicate could be made for examination by plaintiffs’ computer forensics expert. Plaintiffs alleged that defendant deliberately used “wiping” software to permanently remove data from her hard drive – and then attempted to “cover her tracks” by deleting the “wiping” software before producing the hard drive to plaintiffs. Read More