Mueller v. Swift

David Mueller (plaintiff) sued his former employer, radio station KYGO, and Taylor Swift (defendants) after KYGO fired him based on a meeting discussing Swift's allegation that Mueller inappropriately touched her; Mueller had secretly recorded that meeting, later substantially edited the recording before consulting an attorney, and sent only the edited clips to his lawyer. When the defendants sought the full recording, Mueller testified that his laptop broke from a coffee spill and his backup external hard drive later stopped working, so he could not produce the complete file. The defendants asked the court to sanction Mueller's spoliation of evidence with an adverse-inference jury instruction directing the jury to presume the destroyed recording would have hurt his case.