Legal Question in Civil Rights Law in Kansas

hard drive discolsure

We are currently involved in a slaap lawsuit with a local developer. He states that my wife distributed a flyer about one of his developments that caused him to lose money. My wife did not author or distribute the flyer, another person has admitted to doing it in a deposition, but my wife and I are still being sued. Now the developers lawyer is demanding that we give our computer hard drive to them for examination so they can see if the flyer was created on our disk. Are we required to do this and what are the chances that the developers lawyer will get a court order for this? Also, we recently had a hard drive crash and I rebuilt the computer and tossed the old drive. This happend a couple weeks before the lawyers letter was written and we have receipts to prove this, will the lawyers acuse us of destroying or hiding evidence?


Asked on 9/01/04, 1:15 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Michael Shultz Law Firm of Michael M. Shultz, P.A.

Re: hard drive discolsure

This is a complicated issue. I have done a lot of land use litigation for govts and for neighborhood groups. If you are defendant in a suit, the developer probably can require you to produce the computer. The issue of whether the hard drive has been changed raises the question of your whether you knowingly destroyed evidence. If you are not a defendant, the developer can probably subpoena your hard drive for review. The evidence issue is not so important if you are not a defendant. I would hope that you have lawyers defending you if you actually are defendants.

Michael Shultz

Overland Park, Kansas

913.385.9955

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Answered on 9/01/04, 1:22 pm


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