Justia Civil Procedure Opinion Summaries

Beyond Systems, an internet service provider, filed suit against Kraft and Connexus seeking damages under California's and Maryland's anti-spam statutes based upon several hundred e-mails which it alleges were unlawful spam. As a preliminary matter, the court concluded that Beyond Systems had Article III standing by claiming a harm: receiving spam e-mail. On the merits, the court agreed with the district court that Beyond Systems is barred from recovery because it consented to the harm underpinning its anti-spam claims. In this case, Beyond Systems created fake e-mail addresses, solely for the purpose of gathering spam; it embedded these addresses in websites so that they were undiscoverable except to computer programs that serve no other function than to find e-mail accounts to spam; it increased its e-mail storage capacity to retain a huge volume of spam; and it intentionally participated in routing spam e-mail between California and Maryland to increase its exposure to spam and thereby allow it to sue under both states' laws. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Beyond Systems v. Kraft Foods" on Justia Law

Yoder hosts auctions for used construction equipment. Its largest annual auction is in Florida. Efacts, owned by Garafola, provides auctioneers with online bidding platforms. In 2003, Yoder began accepting live Internet bids during the Florida auction. Efacts provided services. Efacts received and maintained confidential customer information relating to Yoder’s auctions. In 2008 the companies had a falling out. Yoder terminated the contract and hired RTB, another online bidding services company. On February 7-9, 2010, Efacts accessed the RTB bidding platform without authorization, using an RTB administrative username and password. Garafola was aware of the username and password combination from Efacts’ prior relationship with Yoder and submitted winning bids with a combined price of $41,000 for which it did not pay. On February 10- 11, an Efacts employee gained unauthorized access to the RTB platform, posing as a Yoder customer, and placed 18 winning bids with a combined price of $1,212,074 which were not paid. The Sixth Circuit affirmed judgment in favor of Yoder, rejecting claims based on denial of spoliation sanctions; denial of hearsay objections to documents produced by internet service providers; denial of summary judgment on Computer Fraud and Abuse Act claim; and imposition of sanctions under FRCP 37. View "Yoder & Frey Auctioneers, Inc v. EquipmentFacts, LLC" on Justia Law

Navalimpianti, suing its former officers and employees (including Negro) in Florida, sought to obtain copies of e-mail messages stored by Google in California. Navalimpianti caused a subpoena to be served on Google, which Negro moved to quash. The California trial court ordered Google to produce the e-mails, based on its conclusion that Negro had consented, or was deemed to have consented, to their production. The court of appeal held that, at the time it was entered the order constituted an abuse of discretion. Since then, however, Negro has been ordered by a Florida court to give his express consent to disclosure, and he has complied with that order by e-mailing Google; the express consent takes the contemplated production outside of the Stored Communications Act, 18 U.S.C. 2702 and permits Google to make the requested disclosure.View "Negro v. Superior Ct." on Justia Law

Lightspeed operates online pornography sites and sued a defendant, identified only Internet Protocol address, which was allegedly associated with unlawful viewing of Lightspeed’s content, using a “hacked” password. Lightspeed identified 6,600 others (by IP addresses only) as “co‐conspirators” in a scheme to steal passwords and content. Lightspeed, acting ex parte, served subpoenas on the ISPs (then non‐parties) for the personally identifiable information of each alleged coconspirator, none of whom had been joined as parties. The ISPs moved to quash and for a protective order. The Illinois Supreme Court ultimately ruled in favor of the ISPs. Lightspeed amended its complaint to name as co‐conspirator parties the ISPs and unidentified “corporate representatives,” alleging negligence, violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 U.S.C. 1030 and 1030(g), and deceptive practices. Lightspeed issued new subpoenas seeking the personally identifiable information. The ISPs removed the case to federal court. The district judge denied an emergency motion to obtain the identification information. After several “changes” with respect to Lightspeed’s lawyers, the court stated that they “demonstrated willingness to deceive … about their operations, relationships, and financial interests have varied from feigned ignorance to misstatements to outright lies … calculated so that the Court would grant early‐discovery requests, thereby allowing [them] to identify defendants and exact settlement proceeds.” After granting Lightspeed’s motion for voluntary dismissal, the court granted attorney’s fees under 28 U.S.C. 1927, stating that the litigation “smacked of bullying pretense.” Failing to pay, the lawyers were found to be in civil contempt and ordered to pay 10% of the original sanctions award to cover costs for the contempt litigation. The Seventh Circuit affirmed.View "Duffy v. Smith" on Justia Law

AF Holdings, represented by Prenda Law, filed suit in district court against 1,058 unnamed John Does who it alleged had illegally downloaded and shared the pornographic film "Popular Demand" using a file-sharing service known as BitTorrent. Prenda Law's general approach was to identify certain unknown persons whose IP addresses were used to download pornographic films, sue them in gigantic multi-defendant suits that minimized filing fees, discover the identities of the persons to whom these IP addresses were assigned by serving subpoenas on the Internet service providers to which the addresses pertained, and then negotiate settlements with the underlying subscriber. The providers refused to comply with the district court's issuance of subpoenas compelling them to turn over information about the underlying subscribers, arguing that the subpoenas are unduly burdensome because venue is improper, personal jurisdiction over these Doe defendants is lacking, and defendants could not properly be joined together in one action. The court agreed, concluding that AF Holdings clearly abused the discovery process by not seeking information because of its relevance to the issues that might actually be litigated here. AF Holdings could not possibly have had a good faith belief that it could successfully sue the overwhelming majority of the John Doe defendants in this district. Although AF Holdings might possibly seek discovery regarding individual defendants in the judicial districts in which they are likely located, what it certainly may not do is improperly use court processes by attempting to gain information about hundreds of IP addresses located all over the country in a single action, especially when many of those addresses fall outside of the court's jurisdiction. Given AF Holdings' decision to name and seek discovery regarding a vast number of defendants who downloaded the film weeks and even months apart - defendants who could not possibly be joined in this litigation - one can easily infer that its purpose was to attain information that was not, and could not be, relevant to this particular suit. Accordingly, the court vacated the order and remanded for further proceedings, including a determination of sanctions, if any, for AF Holdings' use of a possible forgery in support of its claim. View "AF Holdings, LLC v. Does 1-1058" on Justia Law

Apple introduced the iPad in 2010. To send and receive data over cellular networks (3G), customers had to purchase a data contract from AT&T and register on an AT&T website. AT&T prepopulated the user ID field on the login screen with customers’ email addresses by programming servers to search for the user’s Integrated Circuit Card Identifier to reduce the time to log into an account. Spitler discovered this “shortcut” and wrote a program, the “account slurper,” to repeatedly access the AT&T website, each time changing the ICC-ID by one digit. If an email address appeared in the login box, the program would save that address. Spitler shared this discovery with Auernheimer, who helped him to refine the account slurper, which collected 114,000 email addresses. Auernheimer emailed the media to publicize their exploits. AT&T fixed the breach. Auernheimer shared the list of email addresses with Tate, who published a story that mentioned some names of those whose email addresses were obtained, but published only redacted email addresses and ICC-IDs. Spitler was in California. Auernheimer was in Arkansas. The servers t were physically located in Texas and Georgia. Despite the absence of any connection to New Jersey, a Newark grand jury indicted Auernheimer for conspiracy to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(2)(C) and (c)(2)(B)(ii), and identity fraud under 18 U.S.C. 1028(a)(7). The Third Circuit vacated his conviction. Venue in criminal cases is more than a technicality; it involves “matters that touch closely the fair administration of criminal justice and public confidence in it.”View "United States v. Auernheimer" on Justia Law