Grubb v. Board of Trustees of the Univ. of Illinois, 2010 WL 3075517 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 4, 2010)

Key Insight: Where plaintiff?s ?workaday use? of the laptop at issue unknowingly resulted in the destruction of usable data and where the laptop did not belong to the plaintiff, was later returned to its third-party owner, and was then wiped clean, the court denied defendant?s motion for sanctions against plaintiff upon finding that there was insufficient evidence of plaintiff?s control of the laptop or that he knew the laptop would be wiped and, more importantly, where the court found that plaintiff?s destruction of data by using the laptop occurred before he knew it would have such a result

Nature of Case: Violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

Electronic Data Involved: Contents of laptop