In Kyko Global, Inc. v. Prithvi Info. Solutions, Ltd., (Wd. Wash. June 13, 2014), plaintiff’s attorneys in a civil fraud suit bought a computer that had been seized from one of the defendants. The defendants figured it to and moved to disqualify the firm. The court denied the motion because the plaintiff’s lawyers had done nothing wrong., even though they went digging for meta-data mining on the hard drive.
Interestingly, the court held that privilege had not been waived by the plaintiff because he had believed that he had adequately erased the hard drive.
Lots of lessons. I remember being told the military burns computer hard drives because they can’t be truly “erased.”
[…] Buy Your Opponents' Computers at Auction and then Have Fun! In Kyko Global, Inc. v. Prithvi Info. Solutions, Ltd., (Wd. Wash. June 13, 2014), plaintiff's attorneys in a civil fraud suit bought a computer that had been seized from one of the defendants. The defendants figured it to and moved to disqualify the … Read more on Patently-O […]
Interestingly, the court held that privilege had not been waived by the plaintiff because he had believed that he had adequately erased the hard drive.
Actually, it held that privilege had not been waived by the defendant.
Interesting case, though. To the extent they can’t show privilege, everything on the computer is admissible. The judge’s reasoning regarding the lack of waiver makes sense to me.
David, The military burns computer hard drives because they can’t be truly “erased.”
It seems that the government as a whole destroys its hard drives as soon as they receive a subpoena. The lesson the Watergate was learned well: no more Nixon tapes, no more smoking guns.
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