Edelson v Cheung, No. 2:13-cv-5870 (JLL)(JAD), 2017 WL 150241 (D.N.J. Jan. 12, 2017)

Key Insight: Where Plaintiff sought spoliation sanctions for Defendant?s deletion of emails and argued that Defendant intended to keep the at-issue account hidden and deleted emails after it was discovered through another party?s production and that those emails revealed Defendant?s intent to keep the at-issue account hidden and other elements of Plaintiff?s claims, the court found that the deletions were ?intended to deprive Plaintiff of the information? contained within and reasoned that Defendant?s claim that he deleted the emails because of computer performance lacked credibility, but declined to impose default judgment absent a sufficient degree of prejudice and instead ordered that a permissive adverse inference instruction would be given to the jury

Nature of Case: Breach of contract and related claims

Electronic Data Involved: Email