FORT WORTH, Texas — A Fort Worth jury recently concluded that Consilio, the Washington, D.C.-based global leader in E-discovery, unlawfully accessed a woman’s computer without authorization, breaching Texas law. The jury found the firm guilty under Title 7, Chapter 33 of the Texas Penal Code, which classifies unauthorized computer access as a Class B Misdemeanor.
In a consequential decision, the jury also determined that Consilio was negligent after they overreached an agreement to narrowly search a client’s emails, instead downloading and subsequently destroying ten years’ worth of emails. This action led to the jury awarding $50,000 in damages to Angelyn Olson of Maine, the plaintiff in this case.
Dallas attorney Rob Miller, representing Olson, expressed gratitude towards the judicial system for its fair verdict. “This verdict is a victory for privacy rights, highlighting the dangers we all face in this digital age. What happened to Mrs. Olson could happen to anyone, risking our personal information and histories,” Miller explained.
Details emerged that Consilio was originally hired as part of a legal case in Maine to conduct a constrained search of Olson’s emails based on specific terms agreed upon by both parties. However, it was revealed during the trial that Consilio had extracted a decade’s worth of Olson’s emails, many of which contained private and sensitive information.
Olson’s legal team argued that despite directives to safeguard the information, Consilio went ahead and destroyed the emails after the violation came to light. This action was pivotal in the jury’s decision on the negligence count.
The case saw its proceedings in the 17th Judicial District Court in Tarrant County, Texas, with attorney Jimmy Goff also representing the Olson family alongside Miller.
As digital privacy increasingly becomes a central issue amidst the advancement of technology, this case in Fort Worth underlines the critical importance of ensuring that companies adhere strictly to legal standards and ethical practices in handling personal data.
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