<human>: Hello /r/legaladvice. I tried to do a search regarding my issue but came up with nothing.

Basically, my dad had a former employee who threatened to quit after being called out on his performance issues by my father (the boss) and my dad let him quit. Here lies the issue, the employee came back and deleted all the contents of his work phone. I know he shouldn't have been allowed to see his phone, but that's already past. What I'm wondering is there anything we can do legally because the employee already stated that he isn't coming back to restore the phone. He even said go ahead and sue him. We're not interested in his personal information. We just need the work contacts. Thanks for reading!

Can you condense the text into three sentences or less?
<bot>: former employee deleted everything on his work phone. Can I pursue any legal action to make him come back and restore said phone?