Magistrate Recommends Adverse Inference Instruction Based in Part on Former Employee’s Cancellation of Personal Yahoo Email Account
Easton Sports, Inc. v. Warrior LaCrosse, Inc., 2006 WL 2811261 (E.D. Mich. Sept. 28, 2006)
Plaintiff was in the business of manufacturing and selling a variety of hockey equipment; the defendants were related sporting goods companies that, at the time of the events giving rise to the complaint, were entering into the hockey equipment business through the acquisition of a hockey equipment manufacturer. Plaintiff alleged that defendants sought to enter the hockey equipment business through a “campaign of industrial espionage, stealing Easton’s trade secrets and raiding its employees.” Plaintiff alleged that defendants had used secret inducements to entice Hamoyun Ghassemi to steal its proprietary information and go to work for defendants. Before leaving plaintiff’s employ, Ghassemi downloaded numerous files and used his personal Yahoo account to forward files to himself and to defendants. The day after the complaint was filed, in which it was alleged that Ghassemi misappropriated plaintiff’s documents and used his personal Yahoo account to communicate with defendants, Ghassemi cancelled his Yahoo account. (Ghassemi was not named as a defendant in the complaint.) Read More