After throwing out son’s porn collection, Michigan parents ordered to pay him $30,000

A man whose porn collection was thrown away four years ago will receive more than $30,000 for his losses, a Michigan court ruled.

It’s his parents, who tossed the boxes of porn for their son’s mental health in 2017, who were ordered to pay their son after he filed suit.

The lawsuit was filed in 2019 by David Werking, who had moved into his parents’ home in Michigan the year prior, according to a complaint. Werking, now 43 years old according to MLive.com, lived with his parents for 10 months following a divorce.

When he moved out, Werking asked his parents to deliver his property, which included boxes of pornography, the lawsuit states. When Werking noticed some of his possessions were missing from the delivery, he asked his parents about it.

His dad said they destroyed 12 boxes of porn and two boxes of sex toys, “and it took quite a while to do so,” according to the lawsuit.

“I do not possess your pornography. It is gone,” the father said in an email to his son, according to court records. “It has either been destroyed or disposed of. I may well have missed a few items that are now in your possession but, at this point, if you don’t have it, it is gone. Ditto for your sex toys and smutty magazines.”

The father later told his son he did him “a big favor” by destroying the property for the betterment of his mental and emotional health, according to the lawsuit.

Werking said the porn was worth more than $25,000, but his attorney requested triple that amount when filing the lawsuit in May 2019.

U.S. District Judge Paul Maloney made his ruling in December, siding with the son.

“There is no question that the destroyed property was David’s property,” Maloney said, according to the Associated Press. “Defendants repeatedly admitted that they destroyed the property.”

The court ordered the parents to pay $30,441.54 to their son and an additional $14,519.82 in attorney fees, according to court records. The $30,441.54 sum is what an expert in pornography valuation determined the collection to be worth, according to MLive.com.

This story was originally published August 27, 2021 at 3:04 PM with the headline "After throwing out son’s porn collection, Michigan parents ordered to pay him $30,000."