Michigan plaintiff files a lawsuit against his parents for throwing away his pornography collection and they’re ordered to pay damages.
David Werking, 42, of Grand Haven, Michigan, filed a lawsuit against his parents, Beth and Paul Werking, for tossing what a U.S. District Judge Paul Maloney in Kalamazoo called “a trove of pornography and an array of sex toys.” And now they’ll have to pay for the move after the court ruled in the plaintiff’s favor. The parties have until February to file estimated damages.
The parents’ attorney, Anne Marie VanderBroek, said she “is working to establish the value of the items that were disposed.” The plaintiff believes damages are roughly $25,000.
David’s attorney, Miles Greengard, said his client “should receive treble damages,” adding, “We have asked the Court for [these] damages, which we believe are warranted given the wanton destruction of the property. This was a collection of often irreplaceable items and property.”
The plaintiff underwent a divorce in 2016 and moved back into his parents’ home. He had been previously living in Muncie, Indiana, and had expected his parents to retrieve his belongings. Later, David realized he was missing at least a dozen boxes full of explicit videos and magazines, which he inquired about and his father admitted to tossing.
He brought to the court an email from his father stating, “Frankly, David, I did you a big favor getting rid of all this stuff.” Standing firm in this, the couple had sought to dismiss the case, which the judge refused.
“Getting to the heart of the coconut now, the legal issue before the court is whether Paul and Beth converted David’s pornography ‘to their own use,’” Maloney wrote, and found that they had. In his ruling, he said, “As early as 1874, Michigan courts have recognized that conversion to one’s ‘own use’ was broad and could include destruction due to the converter’s ‘belief in [the destroyed item’s] deleterious effects.’ The Michigan Supreme Court confirmed that conclusion in 2015. In this case, there is no question that the destroyed property was David’s property. Defendants repeatedly admitted that they destroyed the property, and they do not dispute that they destroyed the property. Therefore, the Court finds that there is no genuine dispute of material fact on David’s statutory conversion claim.”
Beth and Paul explained they’d given their son fair warning he could not move the pornography into their home, or it would be destroyed. They also felt he had abandoned his property in Indiana when he left and could have picked it up himself if it were truly that important to him. Therefore, by tossing his porn they’d made good on their promise. The couple called police on August 23, 2017 after a confrontation, asking David to leave the home for at least three days.
David “repeatedly contacted his parents and tried to retrieve his property from their home,” the judge said. The parents would not allow him back and that they said they would ship his property to him. The parents had kept some materials, described as the ‘worst of the worst,’ in a safety-deposit box, concerned it could be illegal.” However, the Ottawa County Sheriff’s Department investigated and found no evidence of child pornography. Thus, not charges were filed against the plaintiff.
Sources:
Man wins lawsuit against parents who tossed $25K ‘trove of porn’
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