Hi Al..

While I am not familar with Canadian Jurisprudence, I can give you the American perspective.

To your questions..

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- does legal ownership of the computer mean the company has carte blanche rights to all its contents?
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Actually, if the company has the right to exclusive possession, there is a fundamental property right to exclude and to grant access. The company after all may lease, not own the computer. The point is that rights to possession as opposed to having good title control. About the only thing they may not do is sell - attempt to convey title to another.

Based on what you have said, this employee has resigned. If the computer is his, has he made a claim for the computer? Apparently, there have been some communications to the extent that he is unwilling to provide the password. The point of course is that if the computer was his, he would make a demand for the computer. Based on these facts, a reasonable interpretation would allow one to conclude the company has rights to the PC.


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- if the contents will become important in a legal dispute does special care need to be taken that its contents are not tampered with after access is achieved?
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Special care goes to the duty that one owes to another party. In this case, you already have a duty to your client that arises out of the work you agree to perform. As far as I can tell, your duty is to provide the company access to the computer. After that, your work is done. What happens after that should be none of your concern. i.e., you should not worry about it.

The issues in this case are more about rights in property. Quite frankley, if I were the attorney for the company, I would file suit against the employee to compell him giving up the password. The tort of intentional interference with business comes to mind in this case. There may be other issues of course. Still, if the company were my client, that would be the argument I would advocate.







Good luck..