The family of an NCAA soccer star who tragically died by suicide have been accused of deleting key data from her laptop.
Katie Meyer’s parents Steve and Gina filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Stanford in November 2022, nine months after the 22-year-old died.
The champion goalie spilled coffee on a Stanford football player who allegedly had sexually assaulted a soccer teammate, the lawsuit states.
It also said that Katie received a formal written notice on the evening of February 28, 2022 – the same night she died – that charged her with a ‘Violation of the Fundamental Standard.’
The Meyers believe that the school failed to provide adequate support to Katie when she faced a disciplinary matter around the time of her death.
Katie Meyer’s parents Steve, left, and Gina, right, have slammed Stanford University
Meyer, 22, took her own life in February of 2022 after being handed a disciplinary letter
‘Defendants must be able to test those allegations,’ Stanford argued, according to USA Today.
‘Given Plaintiffs’ apparent failure to adequately preserve the laptop and Katie’s electronic data, it is unclear that Defendants will ever be able to do so.’
Stanford has accused the Meyers of ‘failing to preserve’ evidence that could have been on Katie’s laptop.
The couple were ordered to hand over a mirror drive of Katie’s laptop back in September 2023.
Meyer’s family is involved with a wrongful death lawsuit against Stanford over her death
Meyer was the goalkeeper on the national champion Stanford Cardinal in 2019
Judge Frederick S. Chung said at the time: ‘The uncomfortable reality is that much of Katie’s private life — including her deepest, darkest thoughts — may be potentially (be) relevant to this case.’
The university later said setting a trial date in the case would be ‘premature’ because they had reason to believe key evidence had disappeared from the laptop.
Counsel for the Meyers said any missing data was not intentionally wiped, and was a result of an iCloud data purge in accordance with retention policies.
This resulted in ‘accidental deletion,’ they said.
The Meyers’ legal team responded in a filing that Stanford’s ‘allegations are simply baseless distractions from moving this case to trial and an inappropriate attempt to harass and wrongfully disparage the Plaintiffs.’
