Legal Question in Technology Law in California

I took my computor to a Repair company for pre-paid diagnostic test to determind if I was having problems with a virus or the hard drive which I was told would take 1-2 days. After 4 days I went back to the computor co. to find out without my okay they had gone ahead & removed all virus & erased the hard drive data & documents, I was pissed that was 5 years of information & work as a executive director of 3 companies in my files and pictures of family & events I could not replace that was my life. I told them they had to recover my hard drive at their expense. I got my computor back 1 week later last Saturday & all my documents, excel files are gone still & I only have a few of my own photo's on there & lot's of other people I don;t know & many of my own pics are duplicated several times over in the file. What can I do this company? I am just recoverying from major surgery & look forward to returning to the work place and was planning on showing my accomplishments as the Executive Director of Right to Life, St. Faustina's Maternity Home & Life Ministry Director for the Freno Diocese to future employers, I had letter's on laws I created with Sen. Kevin McCarthy & Mayor Harvey Hall from Bakersfield Ca. & many others. Personal contact information gone from such contacts. Please advice me if I can sue these jerks.


Asked on 2/13/12, 12:04 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Bryan Whipple Bryan R. R. Whipple, Attorney at Law

There are lots of lawyers who would be happy to take your case and sue these jerks. They would charge you several hundred dollars an hour and not guarantee results. It sounds like a big risk to me. You would improve your chances if (1) you can find a computer expert who will testify with convincing certainty that the data was recoverable "but for" some boo-boo that was the fault of the defendant company, and (2) you can establish with some degree of definiteness and certainty the monetary value of the lost information. It's not impossible to recover for sentimental value, but much more difficult. Finally, consider the possibility that the lost data can still be recovered.......take the computer to another shop that specializes in DIFFICULT data-recovery problems, explain your problems in detail, and be prepared to pay a lot.

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Answered on 2/13/12, 1:13 pm


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