Plaintiff filed a sexual harassment suit, alleging, among other things, that she had received hundreds of “pornographic” and “offensive” e-mails from co-workers on a laptop provided by the defendant. She would then forward those e-mails to her home computer, and, in some cases, to her husbands computer, provided in association with his job at Bendix. Upon receiving notice of termination, the plaintiff brought her company laptop to an IT consultant who “wiped” the hard drive using “Evidence Eliminator.” After suit was filed, with very little production, the plaintiff claimed that she was unable to provide further files as her home computer had “crashed”. The defendant brought a motion to compel the forensic examination of not only her home computer but her husband’s computer at Bendix. Magistrate Horn noted that “it is well settled that a party has a duty to preserve evidence when the party is placed on notice that the evidence is relevant to the litigation or when the party should have known that the evidence may be relevant to future litigation. The duty to preserve encompasses electronic communications and documents, such as emails, or documents created by computer, such as invoices.” Further, “the fact that the Plaintiff’s home computer allegedly ‘crashed’ – as opposed to having been ‘wiped’ as the work laptop was – in no way eliminates the Plaintiff’s burden to do all she could under those circumstances to preserve evidence” and Rule 34 “permits a party to ‘inspect and copy, test, or sample any tangible things’ which are within the scope of discovery.” Hence, the defendant was permitted to conduct an examination of the home computer, at the defendant’s expense. “Due to the concerns that the Plaintiff raised about the existence of confidential proprietary information on the other subject computers [e.g. at Bendix], the initial forensic examination will be confined to the home computer. Should the ordered examination reveal, however, that there reasonably may be otherwise unavailable responsive information on either of these computers, the Defendant may renew its Motion, giving proper notice to the owner(s). Similarly, if the initial examination reveals evidence of bad faith by the Plaintiff, the Defendant may renew its Motion for costs.” See Orrell v. Motorcarparts of America, No.3:06-418, 2007 WL 4287750 (W.D.N.C. Dec. 5, 2007).