Nucor Corp. v. Bell

Nucor Corporation (plaintiff) sued John Bell and SeverCorr, LLC (defendants) in federal district court. Nucor and SeverCorr each moved to exclude the other’s expert testimony relating to Nucor’s accusation, which SeverCorr denied, that SeverCorr engaged in so-called data wiping to spoliate evidence on Bell’s laptop. In regard to the testimony of Nucor’s expert, John Jorgensen, the court found that (1) Jorgensen abandoned all but his latest theory to explain the alleged data wiping, (2) Jorgensen’s data-load progression testing produced replicable results that supported some of Jorgensen’s opinions, (3) Jorgensen withdrew his opinion regarding a hyperfil.sys file on Bell’s laptop, (4) Jorgensen based one of his opinions on an inexact comparison between so-called Collingwood computers and Bell’s laptop, and (5) Jorgensen’s claims concerning Ultimate Cleaner and Ultimate Defender software were either untested or directly refuted by the softwares’ manufacturer. In regard to SeverCorr’s expert, Sean McLinden, the court found that (1) McLinden was professionally trained as a physician but had been employed in computer forensics for 30 years, (2) McLinden validated some of his opinions through Internet chat-room conversations with computer forensics experts, and (3) McLinden did not uniformly employ best practices for copying Bell’s hard drive but did use copying software that most experts considered reliable. The court then proceeded to analyze the legal consequences of its fact findings.