The court reviewed the elements of a spoliation claim to determine if they had been met with respect to the deleted email.

FORBES: Spoliation of Evidence and the Totality of the Circumstances

The Sofer Defendants wrote and deleted the email after the lawsuit was filed, so there was no question that their duty to preserve had already attached to that email.

FORBES: Spoliation of Evidence and the Totality of the Circumstances

The court agreed that the record provides evidence that a single email was deleted by the Sofer Defendants.

FORBES: Spoliation of Evidence and the Totality of the Circumstances

Many others said the switch had wiped out email settings, deleted aliases and re-set filters.

BBC: Sky customers complain after Yahoo email switch

"If a person deletes an email, he should be confident that email is actually deleted, " Bits of Freedom founder Maurice Westerling said.

BBC: NEWS | Business | Google's Gmail sparks privacy row

Many UK customers of Sky are being deluged with thousands of old and deleted messages as the company switches email providers.

BBC: Sky customers complain after Yahoo email switch

Some users who received the email noticed that some of their tweets had been deleted, while others said spam links had been posted without their knowledge - a typical characteristic of a compromised account.

BBC: Twitter accessed on a computer

However, its terms of use acknowledge that "residual copies of email may remain on our systems, even after you have deleted them from your mailbox or after the termination of your account".

BBC: NEWS | Business | Google's Gmail sparks privacy row