Date: 2009-10-22 Master Brott. | Link

In this personal injury case, the defendants sought to compel the plaintiff to produce her computer. Plaintiff's counsel advised the solicitor for the defendants that "the plaintiff's computer became corrupted and the information was not retrievable after a professional attempted to save her data.  The plaintiff took several captures which show the corruption of the hard drive."  Plaintiff's counsel offered to consent to an amendment of the Statement of Defence to plead spoliation of evidence.  (para 5) The defendants further assert that there is no credible evidence that the computer was destroyed and accordingly the court must ignore all of the responding evidence and order that the computer be produced for inspection. (para 9) The Master wrote that the proceeding had gone astray, and that whether or not the computer was corrupted or was still available, plaintiff's counsel had sworn an Affidavit that the computer was no longer available, and that it would be at trial where the plaintiff would be asked to explain on cross-examination the whereabouts of her hard drive and the actual computer. See Dan Michaluk's summary here.