A Buffalo Grove company is suing an accounting and legal firm for more than $50,000 over a crashed hard drive.
Magellan Associates of Buffalo Grove filed a lawsuit Oct. 21 in Cook County Circuit Court against attorney Debra A. Buettner of South Barrington and her self-named consulting firm.
According to the lawsuit, Magellan retained Buettner as a tax adviser and general counsel until a dispute in April 2014 resulted in them parting ways. When Magellan sent a crashed hard drive with sensitive data to a third party for repairs, the suit says, Buettner charged Magellan for data retrieval and later intercepted the drive and the recovered data, and refused to release it back to Magellan.
The plaintiff also says it paid the defendant $6,100 for the preparation of state and federal tax returns that she never prepared.
Magellan seeks damages of more than $50,000, including punitive damages and litigation costs. It is represented by attorney Eric J. Ryan of the Law Offices of Eric J. Ryan in Geneva.
Cook County Circuit Court case number 2015-CH-15502.