The Court granted Defendants’ motion to compel the production of e-mail communications contained on a home computer.  Further, the Court noted that if the e-mails were deleted, Plaintiff shall produce for inspection the computer hard drive from which the deleted e-mails were sent – thus allowing the Defendants to use the services of a computer forensic specialist, if necessary, to retrieve them.  Id. at **6-8.
 
With respect to Defendants’ motion for sanctions, the Court granted Defendants appropriate monetary sanctions based on Plaintiff’s failure to provide timely production of the e-mails herein ordered to be produced. However, the Court denied Defendants’ request for additional sanctions for alleged spoliation of evidence noting that Defendants failed to establish Plaintiff had an obligation to preserve the e-mails at the time she deleted them. Finally, the Court noted that the denial of sanctions based on alleged spoliation of evidence was without prejudice to any further request for a “negative inference instruction” that Defendants request – allowing the trial judge to determine that request.  Id. at **9-13.