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.

