California high court to hear mass e-mail case

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

California high court to hear mass e-mail case

By Scarlet Pruitt

March 29, 2002; CNN

http://europe.cnn.com/2002/TECH/industry/03/29/email.
pamphleteer.idg/index.html

(IDG) -- The California Supreme Court agreed this week to
review a lower courta's decision that effectively allowed
companies to sue parties that send unwanted e-mail to
their employees, according to the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, a San Francisco-based civil liberties group.

The case concerns former Intel Corp. employee Ken Hamidi,
who was sued by the chip maker after he sent six mass e-
mail messages to Intel employees, complaining about the
way the company treated its workers.

Intel won an injunction against Hamidi in November 1998,
claiming that he was flooding its systems and trespassing
on its property. Hamidi appealed the case with support
from the foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union
in New York, claiming that his right to free speech was
violated.

Last December, the Third Appellate District Court of
California ruled (download PDF) that sending the unwanted
e-mail was an illegal trespass, citing a legal argument
called "trespass the chattels."

The doctrine prohibits others from interfering with
personal property. According to the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, the interference must be intentional physical
contact with someone else's property that results in
substantial interference or damage to the property. But
civil liberties groups, including the Electronic Frontier
Foundation, fear that this doctrine, if applied to the
digital world, would open the door for any number of
claimants who contend that an unwanted e-mail or search-
engine crawl served as a trespass on their property.

No one from Intel was immediately available for comment on
the case.

Opening briefs for the California Supreme Court case will
be due about April 28, according to the Electronic
Frontier Foundation.