Rimkus Consulting Group, Inc. v. Cammarata

Nickie Cammarata and Gary Bell (defendants), former employees of Rimkus Consulting Group (plaintiff), left to form a competing company. After they sued Rimkus in Louisiana seeking to invalidate parts of their employment contracts, Rimkus sued them in Texas for breach of contract and trade-secret misappropriation; the cases were consolidated in federal court in Texas. The defendants admitted deleting relevant emails and allegedly discarded laptops to prevent recovery, adopting a policy of deleting emails after two weeks; Rimkus also accused them of lying under oath. Rimkus sought sanctions including monetary penalties, an adverse jury instruction, and default judgment.