Malibu Media, LLC v. Harrison, No. 1:12-CV-117-WTL-MJD, 2015 WL 3545250 (S.D. Ind. June 8, 2015)

Key Insight: Where magistrate judge found that defendant violated his duty to preserve when he discarded his laptop after it allegedly crashed but declined to impose default judgement or an adverse inference absent evidence of bad faith, the district court upheld the decision not to impose default judgment but, reasoning that the credibility of defendant?s explanation was best left to the jury, held that the jury would be instructed that if it found bad faith, it could infer the computer?s contents were unfavorable

Nature of Case: Copyright infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Contents of hard drive