Timing of Defendant’s Actions Weighs Heavily in Analysis of Spoliation Sanctions
Barrette Outdoor Living, Inc. v. Michigan Resin Representatives, No. 11-13335, 2013 WL 3983230 (E.D. Mich. Aug. 1, 2013)
For Defendant’s bad faith failure to preserve his cellular phone and his deletion of 270,000 files from his personal laptop using scrubbing software, the district court adopted the recommendations of the Magistrate Judge and ordered monetary sanctions equaling $35,000 and an irrefutable adverse inference that the phone and deleted files would have contained information unfavorable to the defendant, including that Defendant was involved with the company allegedly created for the “pass-through” scheme on which Plaintiff’s claims were based.