Katz, David A., United States District Judge
The court declined to bar
plaintiffs’ evidence because defendant failed to show that information lost by
plaintiffs on the hardware and software of their online bidding system would
have been relevant.
Plaintiffs alleged that defendant violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by submitting fraudulent bids online. In a previous order, the court denied defendant’s motion in limine to exclude evidence of fraud that plaintiffs had submitted from their online bidding system. Defendant filed a motion for reconsideration of the denial, this time around arguing that plaintiffs’ failure to preserve the bidding system’s hardware or software (or at least a forensic image thereof) unaltered from the moment the alleged fraud occurred constituted spoliation.
The court declined to find spoliation because defendant failed to point to any lost evidence from plaintiffs’ online bidding system that would have been actually relevant. The most defendant could do was suggest that it needed to examine the entire running system as it existed at the time the alleged fraud occurred to see if any software flaws could have caused the system to make inaccurate records. Defendant argued that evidence of a software flaw could uncover evidence questioning the records of fraudulent bidding that plaintiffs had presented.
However, defendant failed to show that what it might have discovered from examining the entire running system actually would have been actually relevant to its defense. "Might haves" and "may haves" are insufficient to find relevance; courts require a demonstration of actual relevance. Because defendant failed to show the actual relevance of the exact hardware and software of the online bidding system at the time defendant’s alleged fraud occurred, the court could not find the duty to preserve necessary for spoliation.
v.
EQUIPMENTFACTS, LLC, et al., Defendant
Counsel
David W. Stuckey, Thomas A. Gibson, Robison, Curphey & O'Connell, Toledo, OH, Anthony J. Lacerva, Collins & Scanlon, Cleveland, OH, for Plaintiffs.Darth M. Newman, Joseph A. Martin, Trevor J. Cooney, Archer & Greiner, Haddonfiled, NJ, Anthony J. Lacerva, Collins & Scanlon, Cleveland, OH, for Defendants.