Attorney Evan Brown

November 16, 2010 Privacy

Case against iPhone eavesdropper moves forward

Caro v. Weintraub, 2010 WL 4514273 (D. Conn. November 2, 2010)

Stepson who used iPhone to record conversation about dying mother’s will may be liable for invasion of privacy and infliction of emotional distress.

This past summer the case against a man accused of using his iPhone to surreptitiously record a family conversation about his dying mother’s will got some attention when the court dismissed the stepfather-widower’s claim for violation of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.

But the dismissal of that case was not the end of the story. Plaintiff had filed a separate lawsuit, claiming, among other things, invasion of privacy (by intrusion upon seclusion) and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Defendants (the allegedly eavesdropping iPhone user and his brother) moved to dismiss the invasion of privacy and emotional distress claims. The court denied the motion.

Plaintiff alleged that four days before his wife (defendants’ mother) died, defendants and some other family members came over to the house to discuss the mother’s will. Unbeknown to plaintiff, one of the defendant brothers allegedly used his iPhone to secretly record the conversation. In the subsequent litigation over the mother’s estate, the stepsons attempted to use an allegedly altered version of the recording as evidence.

The court found that the act of secretly recording the conversation could constitute invasion of privacy. Whether it actually happened the way plaintiff claimed will be decided later by a jury. But the judge found that a jury was entitled to make that determination. Plaintiff’s claims that defendants surreptitiously recorded an intimate conversation about a family member’s will qualified as an offensive intentional intrusion in private affairs that could be highly offensive to a reasonable person.

As for the intentional infliction of emotional distress claim, the court found that defendants’ alleged conduct “exceed[ed] all bounds usually tolerated by decent society.” As with the invasion of privacy claim, the question of liability will go to a jury (unless the case settles, of course.)

November 13, 2010 Electronic Discovery, Litigation, Privacy

Facebook account protected from disclosure in discovery, for now

McCann v. Harleysville Insurance, — N.Y.S.2d —, 2010 WL 4540599 (November 12, 2010)

Unlike some recent cases such as Romano v. Steelcase, which seem to give the impression that the information in a person’s social networking account is always fair game for discovery in litigation, one New York court has come down on the side of protecting the privacy of a Facebook user’s content.

Plaintiff was injured in an automobile accident and filed a lawsuit over her injuries. In the course of discovery, defendant sought photographs from plaintiff’s Facebook account and “an authorization” to access the account. Defendant claimed the sought-after discovery related to whether plaintiff sustained a serious injury.

After plaintiff did not respond to the discovery requests, defendant moved to compel. The trial court denied the motion, finding the discovery to be overly broad, and finding that defendant had failed to show the relevancy of the information to be discovered. Defendant sought review with the appellate court. On appeal, the court affirmed.

The court held that the discovery sought was too broad and that defendant had failed to show the relevancy of the information. It affirmed the denial of the motion as to avoid a “fishing expedition.”

But the holding is anything but reassuring from the plaintiff’s perspective. It affirmed the denial without prejudice to serving additional discovery requests. So it sounds as if defendant tailors its discovery a bit more closely, and shows how accessing plaintiff’s Facebook account will provide relevant evidence, it may see some success.

November 9, 2010 Copyright, DMCA

Court orders company to stop sending bogus DMCA notices to eBay

Design Furnishings, Inc. v. Zen Path LLC, No. 10-2765, 2010 WL 4321568 (E.D. Cal. October 21, 2010)

Decision shows court’s willingness to crack down on overreaching rights holders and abusive DMCA takedown practices.

Plaintiff and defendant both sell wicker furniture on eBay. Defendant sent 63 notices to eBay complaining that plaintiffs auctions infringed on defendant’s purported copyright in the furniture.

So plaintiff filed a lawsuit over the barrage of DMCA takedown notices, claiming, among other things, that defendant violated 17 U.S.C. 512(f) by knowingly and materially misrepresenting that plaintiff’s eBay auctions contained infringing material. Plaintiff asked the court to grant a temporary restraining order (TRO), stopping defendant from sending the notices to eBay. The court granted the motion.

The court found that plaintiff would likely succeed on its Section 512(f) claim because of the strong inference that defendant knew it did not have a valid copyright claim. On this point, the court found that the defendant appeared to be claiming copyright protection in the industrial design of the wicker furniture. But the Copyright Act excludes “useful articles” from the scope of copyright protection.

The court also found plaintiff might suffer irreparable harm if defendant were permitted to keep sending the bogus DMCA takedown notices. If eBay were to suspend plaintiff’s account, plaintiff might lose prospective customers and goodwill. This sort of harm was intangible and not capable of measurement. Because of the risk of harm, the court also found that the balance of equities tipped in plaintiff’s favor.

Finally, the court found that the TRO would serve the public interest. On this point the court made the intriguing observation that eBay’s policies of taking down content upon the mere allegations of infringement reverses the ordinary burden of proof in copyright infringement matters. The court granted the TRO to prevent defendant from “effectively shut[ting] down a competitor’s business on eBay simply by filing the notice that the seller’s product allegedly infringes on the complaining party’s copyright.”

November 2, 2010 Contracts, First Amendment, Fraud/Misrepresentation

Facebook victorious in lawsuit brought by kicked-off user

Young v. Facebook, 2010 WL 4269304 (N.D. Cal. October 25, 2010)

Plaintiff took offense to a certain Facebook page critical of Barack Obama and spoke out on Facebook in opposition. In response, many other Facebook users allegedly poked fun at plaintiff, sometimes using offensive Photoshopped versions of her profile picture. She felt harassed.

But maybe that harassment went both ways. Plaintiff eventually got kicked off of Facebook because she allegedly harassed other users, doing things like sending friend requests to people she did not know.

When Facebook refused to reactivate plaintiff’s account (even after she drove from her home in Maryland to Facebook’s California offices twice), she sued.

Facebook moved to dismiss the lawsuit. The court granted the motion.

Constitutional claims

Plaintiff claimed that Facebook violated her First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The court dismissed this claim because plaintiff failed to demonstrate that the complained-of conduct on Facebook’s part (kicking her off) “was fairly attributable to the government.” Plaintiff attempted to get around the problem of Facebook-as-private-actor by pointing to the various federal agencies that have Facebook pages. But the court was unmoved, finding that the termination of her account had nothing to do with these government-created pages.

Breach of contract

Plaintiff’s breach of contract claim was based on other users harassing her when she voiced her disapproval of the Facebook page critical of the president. She claimed that in failing to take action against this harassment, Facebook violated its own Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.

The court rejected this argument, finding that although the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities may place restrictions on users’ behavior, it does not create affirmative obligations on the part of Facebook. Moreover, Facebook expressly disclaims any responsibility in the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities for policing the safety of the network.

Good faith and fair dealing

Every contract (under California law and under the laws of most other states) has an implied duty of good faith and fair dealing, which means that there is an implied “covenant by each party not to do anything which will deprive the other parties . . . of the benefits of the contract.” Plaintiff claimed Facebook violated this implied duty in two ways: by failing to provide the safety services it advertised and violating the spirit of the terms of service by terminating her account.

Neither of these arguments worked. As for failing to provide the safety services, the court looked again to how Facebook disclaimed responsibility for such actions.

The court gave more intriguing treatment to plaintiff’s claim that Facebook violated the spirit of its terms of service. It looked to the contractual nature of the terms of service, and Facebook’s assertions that users’ accounts should not be terminated other than for reasons described in the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. The court found that “it is at least conceivable that arbitrary or bad faith termination of user accounts, or even termination . . . with no explanation at all, could implicate the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing.”

But plaintiff’s claim failed anyway, because of the way she had articulated her claim. She asserted that Facebook violated the implied duty by treating her coldly in the termination process, namely, by depriving her of human interaction. The court said that termination process was okay, given that the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities said that it would simply notify users by email in the event their accounts are terminated. There was no implied obligation to provide a more touchy-feely way to terminate.

Negligence

Among other things, to be successful in a negligence claim, a plaintiff has to allege a duty on the part of the defendant. Plaintiff’s negligence claim failed in this case because she failed to establish that Facebook had any duty to “condemn all acts or statements that inspire, imply, incite, or directly threaten violence against anyone.” Finding that plaintiff provided no basis for such a broad duty, the court also looked to the policy behind Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (47 U.S.C. 230) which immunizes website providers from content provided by third parties that may be lewd or harassing.

Fraud

The court dismissed plaintiff’s fraud claim, essentially finding that plaintiff’s allegations that Facebook’s “terms of agreement [were] deceptive in the sense of misrepresentation and false representation of company standards,” simply were not specific enough to give Facebook notice of the claim alleged.

October 27, 2010 Contracts

Customer violated software license by letting attorneys use application

The Compliance Store v. Greenpoint Mortgage Funding, — F.3d —, 2010 WL 4056112 (5th Cir. October 18, 2010)

A federal court in Texas has decided a case that could have notable implications for both providers and users of software. The court took a narrow view of the rights that licensees of software have to authorize third parties (i.e., independent contractors) to use software on behalf of the licensee.

Plaintiff software provider sued its customer for breach of the software license agreement after plaintiff learned that the customer allowed its attorneys to input data using the software. Plaintiff claimed that the use was not permitted by the terms of the license agreement.

Customer moved for summary judgment on the breach of software license claim and the district court granted the motion. Plaintiff software provider sought review with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. On appeal, the court reversed.

The appellate court held that the license agreement should not be read to permit use of the software by a third party not expressly provided for in the agreement, even though such third party’s use of the software was on behalf of or for the benefit of the licensee.

The district court had relied on two earlier Fifth Circuit cases — Geoscan v. Geotrace Technologies and Hogan Systems v. Cybresource International — to look beyond the express language of the license agreement and hold that use of the software by defendant’s attorneys was permitted. The district court found such use to be permitted because it was done on behalf of or for the benefit of defendant.

But the appellate court distinguished Geoscan and Hogan Systems, finding that neither case stands for such an expansive proposition. Unlike the agreements in those cases, the license in this case contained no provision that permitted use by third parties on behalf of the licensee. Moreover, among other things, defendant was expressly prohibited from transferring or sublicensing the technology and was prohibited from assigning its rights under the license agreement. The software license agreement also contained a provision that served to excluse all third party beneficiaries to the agreement.

Photo courtesy Flickr user coiax under this Creative Commons license.

October 20, 2010 Electronic Discovery, Privacy

Stored Communications Act protects Yahoo email account from subpoena

Chasten v. Franklin, 2010 WL 4065606 (N.D.Cal. October 14, 2010)

Plaintiff sued some corrections officers at the prison where her inmate son was killed. She learned in a deposition that one of the defendants had a Yahoo email account. So she sent a subpoena to Yahoo seeking all the email messages sent from that account during a period of more than two years.

Defendant moved to quash the subpoena, arguing that disclosure of the email messages would violate his rights under the Stored Communications Act (SCA). The court granted the motion to quash.

Subject to certain specifically-enumerated exceptions, the SCA (at 18 U.S.C. 2702(a) and (b)) essentially prohibits providers of electronic communication or remote computing services to the public from knowingly divulging the contents of their customers’ electronic communications or the records relating to their customers. The court found that no such exception applied in this case. Citing to Theofel v. Farey-Jones, it held that compliance with the subpoena would be an invasion of the specific interests that the SCA seeks to protect.

October 13, 2010 Contracts, Unfair Competition

Blog post violated nonsolicitation clause in Amway agreement

Amway Global v. Woodward, 2010 WL 3927661 (E.D.Mich. September 30, 2010)

Amway Global went after some of its former distributors in arbitration for, among other things, violating the “Rules of Conduct” which serve as an agreement as to how the distributors (formally known as Independent Business Owners or “IBOs”) operate. Amway claimed that the IBOs violated the Rules of Conduct by soliciting others to leave Amway and join competing enterprises.

The arbitrator found in Amway’s favor, and Amway filed a motion with the court to confirm the award. The court granted the motion.

One of the factual questions was whether one of the IBOs violated the rules against solicitation by blogging about his decision to leave Amway and join another company. One of his posts said “[i]f you knew what I knew, you would do what I do.”

The IBOs argued that this statement did not constitute actionable solicitation because the communication was passive and untargeted, and because there was no evidence that anyone responded to the solicitation by leaving Amway.

The court rejected these arguments. As to the “passive and untargeted” argument, the court observed that:

[C]ommon sense dictates that it is the substance of the message conveyed, and not the medium through which it is transmitted, that determines whether a communication qualifies as a solicitation. The [statement] is readily characterized as an invitation for the reader to follow his lead and join [Amway’s competitor], and this is true despite the diffuse and uncertain readership of the site.

As to the argument based on the fact that no one responded, the court found that the express language of the nonsolicitation clause which prohibited “encourag[ing], solicit[ing], or otherwise attempt[ing] to recruit or persuade any other IBO to compete with” Amway did not turn on the success of those prohibited efforts.

October 12, 2010 Electronic Discovery, Privacy

Bipolar disorder no excuse for email hacker

Leor Exploration v. Aguiar, 2010 WL 3782195 (S.D. Fla. September 28, 2010)

Plaintiffs claimed that defendant hacked into one of the plaintiffs’ email accounts during the litigation to get an advantage in the case. The court entered severe sanctions against defendant for doing this — it struck his answer. In litigation, that is like declaring plaintiffs the winners.

Defendant had argued to the magistrate judge that his mental illness (bipolar disorder) caused him to hack plaintiff’s email account out of fear for his security. Defendant even presented expert testimony from a psychiatrist to support the claim that he lacked the mental state to act in bad faith.

In adopting the magistrate’s findings, the district judge found defendant’s psychiatric expert’s testimony unmoving. (Mainly because defendant’s lawyers limited what the expert could say.) So the court relied on other evidence that showed defendant’s bad faith intent in accessing the email. The novel theory of “not guilty of email hacking by reason of insanity” failed in this case.

October 11, 2010 Computer Crime, Privacy

Emails on laptop not protected by the Stored Communications Act

Thompson v. Ross, 2010 WL 3896533 (W.D. Pa. September 30, 2010)

Messages from Yahoo and AOL email accounts saved on laptop computer were not in “electronic storage” as defined by Stored Communications Act.

Plaintiff’s ex-girlfriend kept his laptop computer after the two of them broke up. The ex-girlfriend let two of her co-workers access some email messages stored on the computer. Plaintiff filed suit under the Stored Communications Act. Defendants moved to dismiss. The court granted the motion.

Under the Stored Communications Act (at 18 U.S.C. 2701), one is liable if he or she accesses without authorization a facility through which an electronic communication service is provided and thereby obtains, alters, or prevents authorized access to a wire or electronic communication while it is in electronic storage in such system.

The court held that the Stored Communications Act did not cover the email messages because they were not in “electronic storage” as defined at 18 U.S.C. 2510(17)(B). In relevant part, that section defines “electronic storage” as “any storage of such communication by an electronic communication service for purposes of backup protection of such communication.”

The court looked to the plain language of the statute, finding that the definition was not met because the messages were not stored by an electronic communication service. It rejected plaintiff’s arguments that the fact the messages were in “backup storage” extended the scope of the definition.

October 7, 2010 Trademarks

Personal name in web search results did not support Lanham Act claim

Stayart v. Yahoo, — F.3d —, 2010 WL 3785147 (September 30, 2010)

Plaintiff performed a vanity search of her own name on Yahoo and found some results on porn and pharmaceutical sites. When Yahoo would not remove the search results upon plaintiff’s request, plaintiff sued under Section 43(a) of the Lanham Act. She claimed that the results showed a false endorsement by her of the pornographic and pharmaceutical sites.

Yahoo moved to dismiss, arguing that plaintiff was without standing to challenge this use of her personal name under Section 43(a). The district court granted the motion. Plaintiff sought review with the Seventh Circuit. On appeal, the court affirmed.

It held that plaintiff had failed to show she had a commercial interest in her name. Such interests are the only ones protectible under Section 43(a). Attempting to overcome this hurdle, plaintiff urged the court to consider her online activities such as writing “scholarly articles” and some poetry to be commercial services.

The court rejected this argument, noting that while those goals may be passionate and well intentioned, they are not commercial. Absent commercial activity, plaintiff lacked standing under the Lanham Act.

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