Of all the things that can go wrong when deleting your former employer’s YouTube videos, being liable for vandalism may not be the first thing that comes to mind. But it happened to the former employee of an Ohio company.
Defendant worked for plaintiff as vice president of sales and left the company in 2017. During that time plaintiff authorized defendant to access the company’s two YouTube channels and to upload content. Two years after defendant left, however, all the videos on both channels disappeared. Through detailed forensic work, plaintiff showed that defendant deleted the videos using his iPhone.
So plaintiff sued defendant for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, “vandalism” under Ohio law, and breach of a confidentiality provision in defendant’s employment contract. Plaintiff sought summary judgment on these claims, and the court granted plaintiff’s motion, finding there was no reasonable dispute the defendant deleted the YouTube videos.
The vandalism claim is particularly interesting. Under the applicable Ohio law, one is liable if he or she knowingly causes physical harm to the property of another. The decision does not indicate that defendant argued the deletion of YouTube videos would not meet this criterion. Instead, the decision indicates that defendant essentially stipulated he would be liable if plaintiff proved he deleted the videos. The court believed the so-called “mountain” of evidence plaintiff produced showing that defendant was the one who did the deletion.
Kaivac, Inc. v. Stillwagon, 2021 WL 184593 (S.D. Ohio, January 19, 2021)
About the author: Evan Brown is a technology and intellectual property attorney in Chicago. This post originally appeared on http://evan.law.