True, the lab would fear losing their future business by impugning its customer. This really ought to have been handled through a court judge. (But again how often does Las Vegas send a damaged disk drive to California for data recovery?)
Every time their cops gun somebody down under questionable circumstances in front of a bank of store surveillance cameras?
In all honesty, I really doubt the disk drive was damaged (at least prior to the incident). I can be cynical like that.