Oce N. Am., Inc. v. Brazeau, 2010 WL 5033310 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 18, 2010)

Key Insight: Court rejected objections to the Magistrate Judge?s recommendation that plaintiff?s motion for a preliminary injunction be denied and, addressing plaintiff?s assertions that an evidentiary gap regarding defendant?s alleged misappropriation of information could be filled by adverse inference resulting from defendant?s failure to preserve instant messages, declined to impose such an inference where defendant mistakenly believe that the messages were automatically preserved and, upon learning otherwise, made changes to preserve going forward and thus plaintiffs were unable to show a culpable state of mind and where the alleged spoliation caused little harm in light of the availability of other evidence

Nature of Case: Breach of non-competition agreement

Electronic Data Involved: Instant messages