Plaintiff, in employment dispute, admitted that she had deleted hundreds of e-mails from her home computer, and objected to production of the hard drive on the basis of overbeadth, privilege, and privacy concerns. Magistrate Rushfelt in the District of Kansas noted that “deleting these e-mails, even if done in good faith and at a time before Plaintiff contemplated her legal action, does not necessarily remove the e-mails from her possession, custody or control.” The court observed that “deleted documents should be retrievable from her computer system” and ordered her to produce them within fifteen days, or to produce for inspection the hard drive from which the deleted e-mails were sent. “This will allow Defendants to use the services of a computer forensic specialist, if necessary, to retrieve them.” But any such inspection of the hard drive “shall be specifically limited to e-mails Plaintiff sent to her husband that discuss Defendant’s alleged retaliation at issue in this action and to her communications with Defendant’s paralegal students.” See Benton v. Dlorah, Inc., No.06-2488, 2007 WL 2321431 (D.Kan. Oct. 30, 2007).
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