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Employer Erased an Ex-Employee's Personal Computer

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  • 03-25-2014, 09:17 AM
    RichO
    Employer Erased an Ex-Employee's Personal Computer
    My question involves laws for the state of: WI

    Not sure if this is the right section but I worked for a small company for 20 years as manager of operations. About 3 years ago the computer I was using broke down. Because the company was struggling financially and because I needed another computer immediately, instead of spending $500 on a new computer, I took an extra one I had at home and began using it as my work computer. About a year ago a co-worker's computer also died and so I grabbed another old one I had sitting around home and connected it up for him to use to keep things running.

    About 13 days ago I was let go from this company without notice. The company held on to my computers despite my opposition to it, because they needed to delete all company related data from them before returning them to me. OK that's understood, but they kept them for nearly 2 weeks. Now today they were returned to me and I find out that they completely wiped the hard drives clean on both of them, operating system and all, rendering both of them useless. When I was terminated I made it clear to the owner that these computers contained personal files that belonged to me.

    Basically, did they have a right to do this, or do I have some legal grounds to sue them for this? And what would be the value of it?

    Keep in mind that this was a small family business where everyone was friends and there was no written policy about anything. I was close friends with the owner until he passed in 2009 and his wife took over.
  • 03-25-2014, 09:22 AM
    flyingron
    Re: Employer Erased My Personal Computer
    You can sue them if you wish, but I doubt you'd prevail. You risked that sort of nonsense when you brought a computer in and used it for work. You should have had your personal stuff (backed up or residing) elsewhere. I'm not even sure what tangible damages you have.
  • 03-25-2014, 09:32 AM
    Mr. Knowitall
    Re: Employer Erased an Ex-Employee's Personal Computer
    If you have your original disks and/or keys, you can likely re-install the software necessary to get the computers back up and running. I would question whether it would be worth buying new licenses for the computers, as the value of a new Windows license likely exceeds the value of the computers, system software installed, on the used computer market.

    I have no way of commenting on what value, if any, existed in your personal files. It would seem odd to let a co-worker use a computer for a year if it had valuable personal files on its hard drive, let alone without backing up those files. For the computer you used, if the personal files had not been touched for three or more years, it would not seem that they had much value. If the computer was being used for personal purposes once put into use for the benefit of your employer, the question is raised of why (particularly for a manger of operations) that should be treated any differently than personal files saved on any other work computer.

    Before you can decide if it's worth trying to pursue this, you need to figure out a dollar figure for damages that you might be reasonably able to prove in court. Based on that figure, you would have to evaluate whether it's worth the trouble of trying to convince a court that your ex-employer acted improperly.
  • 03-25-2014, 09:41 AM
    RichO
    Re: Employer Erased an Ex-Employee's Personal Computer
    There were no valuable personal files on the one I brought in for the co worker, only on the one that I was using, and most of what was important to me was music files.

    I guess it's the thanks you get for being nice. Like I said, this company was in financial trouble for years, which is the reason I lost my job, and the reason I decided to be nice and bring my own computer instead of costing them $400 for a new one of their own. I pretty much ran the company for the last 5 years since the owner died and was put in charge of making most of the decisions, and I felt this was in the company's best interest, much like the 2 pay cuts I took and the Christmas bonus that I gave back. No good deed goes unpunished.
  • 03-25-2014, 10:12 AM
    BooRennie
    Re: Employer Erased an Ex-Employee's Personal Computer
    Not legal advice, but a really good PC technician could attempt to recover those files, even from a formatted disk. (I've done it more than once myself.) If there have been no hardware changes, the OS keys should still work. It might require a call to MS to get them activated, but more than likely not.
  • 03-25-2014, 10:17 AM
    flyingron
    Re: Employer Erased an Ex-Employee's Personal Computer
    No good deed goes unpunished. But losing the hard disk info on personal machines brought in to do company work is entirely within the realm of expected behavior of the management. There's just no guarantee that sensitive information doesn't persist even in the system areas of the disk. I tell you that you'd not even have gotten the hard drives back out of the facility if you brought them into my old company for exactly the reason BooRennie alludes to.
  • 03-25-2014, 10:36 AM
    RichO
    Re: Employer Erased an Ex-Employee's Personal Computer
    Quote:

    a really good PC technician could attempt to recover those files
    Well, I tried putting the hard disk into another computer to see if any partitions were accessible and the computer says the hard drive is unformatted.

    Quote:

    I tell you that you'd not even have gotten the hard drives back out of the facility if you brought them into my old company
    I know what you mean from a legal standpoint, but you have to understand the background of this company. It was a small family run business and I got hired 20 years ago because I was friends with the owner. When he passed in 2009 his wife took over ownership and left the running of the business to me. In fact, she asked me to keep a backup of the company data off site in case of fire, so I have their data at home anyways and she knows it so erasing the hard drive was pointless and was done for punitive reasons only.
  • 03-25-2014, 10:47 AM
    flyingron
    Re: Employer Erased an Ex-Employee's Personal Computer
    You can ascribe whatever reasoning you want to their actions, but they'll counter with the what they said on the face. You're unlikely to prevail and you're appear to have hardly any damages that would be recoverable even if they were 100% in the wrong.
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