A disgruntled employee, seeking to sabotage their company, remotely accessed the company's client database using a former colleague's login credentials without authorization. The employee then deleted a significant portion of critical client data, causing substantial financial loss and requiring extensive effort to recover the information. Which tort has the employee most likely committed?
- ATrespass to Land
- BConversion
- CIntentional Infliction of Emotional Distress
- DTrespass to Chattels
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: B. Conversion
Conversion occurs when there is an intentional exercise of dominion or control over a chattel which so seriously interferes with the right of another to control it that the actor may justly be required to pay the full value of the chattel. Deleting a significant portion of critical client data, causing substantial financial loss and requiring extensive recovery efforts, constitutes a serious interference amounting to a complete deprivation of the value and use of that data, thus fitting conversion.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. Trespass to land involves real property, not digital data.
- C. Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress requires extreme and outrageous conduct causing severe emotional distress, which is not the primary harm described here.
- D. Trespass to chattels involves a lesser interference, typically not amounting to a complete or near-complete deprivation of the chattel's value or use.
Conversion (Digital Data)
An intentional exercise of dominion or control over a chattel (which can include digital data) which so seriously interferes with the right of another to control it that the actor may justly be required to pay the full value of the chattel.
- Intentional act.
- Serious interference with possession or ownership.
- Chattel (personal property, including digital data).
- Interference amounts to complete or near-complete deprivation of value/use.
- Damages are typically the full value of the chattel.
Memory trick: Chattel's brief touch, Conversion's full snatch.