legal news


Register | Forgot Password

Braun v. Toyota Motor Sales

Appellant Steven Braun, a former manager for Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. (Toyota), sued respondents Toyota and Randall Bauer (Bauer), his supervisor at Toyota, for sexual harassment and wrongful termination. The trial court granted Toyota’s motion to compel production of any data storage files containing either photographs appellant might have taken of Bauer’s office or photographs of appellant from 2000 through 2010. Because appellant had downloaded photographs covered by the order onto his home computer, in order to comply with the order, he had to produce his computer for inspection and copying. Before doing so, he deleted more than 42,000 files which he claimed were privileged under the right of privacy. He left on the computer more than 13,000 photographs covered by the order. Based on appellant’s violation of the order compelling discovery, the trial court granted Toyota’s motion for a terminating sanction. In this appeal, we conclude that the court did not abuse its discretion by ordering discovery of the data storage files in the first place, but that the court did abuse its discretion in terminating the action. We therefore reverse the judgment of dismissal and remand the case for the court to consider appropriate sanctions short of termination.

Search thread for
Download thread as



Quick Reply

Your Name:
Your Comment:

smiling face wink grin cool nod sticking out tongue raised eyebrow confused shocked shaking head disapproval rolling eyes sad mad

Click an emoji to insert it into your message. You may use BB Codes in your message.
Spam Prevention:

    Home | About Us | Privacy | Subscribe
    © 2025 Fearnotlaw.com The california lawyer directory

  Copyright © 2025 Result Oriented Marketing, Inc.

attorney
scale