On July 31, 1996, plaintiff Omega Engineering Corp. ("Omega"), a New Jersey based company, lost its computer programs relating to design and production permanently from its system. Omega manufactured “highly specialized and sophisticated industrial process measurement devices and control equipment” for NASA and the United States Navy. The deletion of these programs debilitated their ability for manufacturing as well as costed the company millions of dollars in contracts and sales. From 1985 to July 10, 1996, defendant Timothy Lloyd worked as the computer system administrator at Omega. He trained with the Novell computer network and installed it to Omega’s computer system. The program worked to ensure that all of Omega’s documents could be kept on a central file server. Lloyd was the only Omega employee to maintain the Novell client and have “top-level security access” to it; however, the defense asserted that others at the company had access. According to a government expert, access "means that ... [an] account has full access to everything on the server." Lloyd was also the only employee in charge of backing up the information to the server. In 1994 or 1995, Lloyd became difficult. The company moved him laterally in hopes of improving his behavior. A government witness testified that even though it was a lateral move, it was in fact, considered a demotion by the company. Lloyd’s new supervisor asked him about the back-up system and wanted him to loop a couple more people in but he never did. Moreover, he instituted a company-wide policy that employees were no longer allowed to make personal backups of their files. On top of the above issues, there was also a “substandard performance review and raise.” The combination of the two factors, according to the government, showed Lloyd that his employment with the company would soon be terminated. This established Lloyd’s motive to sabotage the Omega computer system. On July 10, 1006, Lloyd was terminated. On July 31, 1996, Omega’s file server would not start up. On July 31, “Lloyd told a third party, that "everybody's job at Omega is in jeopardy.” days later it was realized that all of the information contained on it were permanently lost. More than 1,200 of Omega’s programs were deleted and, as per Lloyd’s policy, none of the employees had their own personal backups. There was no way for any of these programs to be recovered. A search warrant conducted on Lloyd’s house turned up some backup tapes and a file server master hard drive. Experts hired by Omega found that the deletion of information was “intentional and only someone with supervisory-level access to the network could have accomplished such a feat.” The commands necessary to pull off such a purge were characterized as a “time bomb” set to go off on July 31st when an employee logged into the system. There was evidence found by these experts of Lloyd testing these specific commands three different times. This string of commands was further found on the hard drive that was in Lloyd’s home. Lloyd was convicted of a federal count of computer sabotage. It was remanded due to a jury member’s claimed use of outside knowledge during deliberations. Julie received her J.D. from Seton Hall University School of Law in 2014. Prior to law school, she was a 2008 magna cum laude graduate of Syracuse University, where she earned a B.A. in History and a minor in Religion and Society. After law school, Julie will serve as a law clerk to a judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey.
Whenever sanctions are involved, you can expect to see questionable behavior from one or more parties. In this particular case, a pro se litigant tried to be cute and the court called him out for it. The Appellant here used to own a company which provided consulting services to the Appellee. Since the company became defunct, the owner became the only remaining party being sued. The district court had entered a discovery preservation order in which the parties agreed the appellant would return a laptop computer along with all of its data. However, the appellant deleted data off the laptop minutes before signing the agreement. Then the appellee initiated post-settlement litigation to obtain sanctions. The appellant’s attorney then withdrew and the appellant continued pro se. The judge found the appellant to be in civil contempt and awarded sanctions of over $50,000. The appellant raised three contentions on appeal. First he argued sanctions under 28 U.S.C. § 1927 could only be awarded against attorneys, not pro se individuals. Circuits are split on this issue. The Third Circuit navigated around the issue, asserting that the district court judge could have justified its sanction under other grounds. Second, the appellant argues that monetary sanctions should not have been awarded because the information was deleted before the discovery agreement was signed. The Third Circuit called out the argument as being a bit too clever and was not persuaded. It all but accused the appellant of deliberately misleading the district court. More damning was the actual language of the agreement. It exposed the appellant to liability arising from the agreement itself, which governed the return of the laptop. Third, the appellant challenges the award for all attorneys' fees. On this issue the Third Circuit remanded for a determination of what fees fairly reflect compensation for the appellant's contumacious conduct. What is more vital here is the punishment for deleting data off the computer. Those who try to outsmart the court will get their just deserts and acting pro se does not provide any sort of loophole.
Background Omega Engineering Corporation, an international company based in New Jersey, was once the employer of Timothy Lloyd. To put Omega’s importance into perspective, the U.S. Navy and NASA were two of their clients for highly specialized and sophisticated industrial process measurement devices. According to testimony during the trial, Lloyd worked at Omega as its sole system administrator from 1985 through 1996. In 1995, Lloyd had undergone Novell network training and installed Novell software on Omega’s computer system. Additionally, Lloyd was the only person who maintained and had top-level access to the Omega network. Between 1994 and 1995, Lloyd became belligerent and increasingly truculent. Due to his poor interpersonal skills, he was demoted in May 1995 from manufacturing to support engineer. A woman who had once been Lloyd’s subordinate and had engaged in a romantic relationship with Lloyd, was the individual responsible for replacing Lloyd as manufacturing supervisor. In June 1996, Lloyd instituted a policy to “clean up” all of the individual computers in Omega’s manufacturing department. It was unclear as to why Lloyd was implementing company policies after his demotion. Nonetheless, the policy required employees to save their files to the company’s file server and prohibited them from making their own backups. Lloyd’s manager became suspicious of this policy and requested from Lloyd access to the file server. Lloyd never complied. By the end of June, upper management had enough of Lloyd’s behavior and terminated him in early July 1996. On July 31, Omega’s file server would not boot up. All of Omega’s manufacturing programs on the server, which contained instructions for operating the machines, were gone. Multiple computer experts were brought in to recover the files, but to no avail. The files had not only been deleted, but also had been “purged,” meaning that they were rendered unrecoverable. A leading expert on Novell networking testified at trial that this could only have been done intentionally and by someone with supervisory-level access. The government’s theory included that on July 30, anyone who would log on to the server at any time after that date would “detonate” a program installed by Lloyd that would destroy the information on the Omega file server. The government’s theory was bolstered by the fact that the Secret Service recovered missing Omega backup tapes that had been reformatted as well as a master hard drive from the file server. This had the same string of commands that had functioned as the time bomb program found on the Omega file server. The Decision Ultimately, Lloyd was found guilty of computer sabotage. The jury had deliberated for over twelve hours over the span of three days and had requested testimony in the jury room before they reached their verdict. However, three days after the verdict, one juror said that she had seen on the news, during the trial, about a computer virus called the Philippine “love bug” which allowed the perpetrator to cause great harm by flooding the victim computers and causing them to crash. Whether this affected her decision is unclear; however, the defendant claimed that his 6th Amendment rights had been violated. The district court agreed, granting a new trial. On review, the Court of Appeals reversed the district court’s holding. After a lengthy discussion, the court said that there were significant dissimilarities between the “love bug” and the “time bomb” and most jurors would not confuse the two. Therefore, the appellate court found, the defendant was not prejudiced. Lloyd’s managers should never have allowed a single employee hold as much power as they did. This case highlights the vulnerabilities the company subjects itself to if that is allowed to happen. For example, Omega lost over 1,200 programs and many current and potential clients as well. Akiva Shepard received his J.D. from Seton Hall University School of Law in 2014. Akiva has worked for a New York State Supreme Court Judge in Kings County, and for a NJ real estate firm.
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