Law360, New York (October 27, 2020, 5:40 PM EDT) -- A New York state judge ruled Tuesday that Jay-Z destroyed evidence in a lawsuit accusing him of failing to promote a perfume line, and as the case nears a possible trial, the judge said jurors could infer that the rap icon's missing emails would have hurt his case.

New York State Supreme Court Justice Andrew Borrok ruled that Jay-Z, whose legal name is Shawn Carter, and his company S. Carter Enterprises LLC had improperly erased emails on his laptop after perfume purveyor Parlux Fragrances LLC sent a letter the judge said clearly put Carter on notice that a lawsuit was likely and he had a duty to preserve his communications.

Throughout the hearing, Justice Borrok interrupted Carter's attorney, Alex Spiro of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP, vociferously and often as he disagreed with Spiro's characterization of the facts, cutting off the attorney's bid to downplay the significance of a July 2015 letter from Parlux to Carter by quoting its opening line: "We want your client to be fully cognizant of the scope of the problem ..."

"That's great. That's the first line," Justice Borrok said. "But one of the things that I learned a long time ago is that when you read stuff, you've got to keep reading."

"What he goes on to say though is, 'Parlux intends to take whatever action it deems necessary and appropriate to recover all the losses it has sustained as a consequence of SCE and Mr. Carter's failure to comply with the terms of the license agreement,'" the judge said.

"What did your client do in response? Well, they contacted outside counsel," Justice Borrok said, reasoning that the letter provided an expectation of litigation and that it was "hard to say at that point in time there wasn't a duty to preserve" Carter's emails.

"Them were fighting words. Know what I mean?" Justice Borrok said.

Spiro pushed back on the issue of culpability, arguing that Carter's failure to stop the "IT guy" from destroying his emails was merely negligent, and not willful or wanton behavior that would merit a finding of spoliation of evidence.

"I agree with you!" Justice Borrok exclaimed, as the two talked over on another. "That would be negligence: 'We should have told the IT guy before he came in.' But that's not what happened here. This wasn't an 'Oops.' This was: 'Please delete these emails.'"

While the judge declined to grant Parlux's request for judgment on the entire case as a result of the missing emails, he decided that "adverse inference is the appropriate remedy," meaning that having a jury hear that the deleted emails would have hurt Carter's case would be the right remedy.

On that note, Justice Borrok denied a separate motion by Parlux to deny Carter a trial by jury, brushing off an argument that the music mogul's counterclaims had waived that right.

"We're going to do a jury trial in this case," Justice Borrok said, that is assuming the court does not grant a pair of pending summary judgment motions, he added.

Parlux first filed suit in January 2016 alongside its parent Perfumania Holdings Inc. with allegations that Carter and his company S. Carter Enterprises LLC breached his contractual obligations to promote the Gold Jay-Z brand of perfume, claiming it lost more than $18 million after he failed to make public appearances for his signature fragrance.

In a countersuit, Jay-Z argued he was still owed more than $2.7 million under the deal, and he later sought information on other celebrities' perfume contracts, including Paris Hilton and Jessica Simpson.

Hilton's attorney, Andrew B. Brettler of Lavely & Singer, was present on Tuesday, arguing that his celebrity client's multimillion-dollar profits and deal details, presented in an expert report, should be redacted from the court record. Neither side objected and the judge agreed to seal those details.

In that report, the perfume industry expert estimated that Parlux lost about $67 million in significant part due to Jay-Z's alleged failure to promote the fragrance.

Parlux Fragrances is represented by Anthony J. Viola, Andre K. Cizmarik and Kaitlyn A. Crowe of Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo PC.

Carter and his company are represented by Alex Spiro, Ellyde R. Thompson, Jordan Harap and Molly K. Webster of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP.

The case is Parlux Fragrances LLC et al. v. S. Carter Enterprises LLC et al., index number 650403/2016, in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York.

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