Court Finds Wife Liable for Agent-Husband’s Intentional Deletions, Recommends Default Judgment
Malibu Media, LLC v. Tashiro, No. 1:13-cv-00205-WTL-MJD, 2015 WL 2371597 (S.D. Ind. May 18, 2015)
In this copyright infringement case, the court found that Defendants “spoiled evidence, committed perjury, and failed to discharge their duties to conduct discovery reasonably and in good faith” and recommended default judgment. Notably, in addition to more familiar issues surrounding the topic of spoliation, the court’s opinion addressed the question of whether spoliation occurs when information is still recoverable (yes) and the propriety of imputing an agent’s bad acts in discovery where, as in this case, Defendant Wife “left it to her agent—her husband—to respond to Plaintiff’s document requests.”