Intel Corp. v. Hamidi

30 Cal.4th 1342 (2003)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Hamidi (D) formed an organization named Former and Current Employees of Intel (FACE) to disseminate information and views critical of Intel's employment and personnel policies and practices. FACE and D sent six mass e-mails to employee addresses on P's electronic mail system. The messages criticized Intel's employment practices, warned employees of the dangers those practices posed to their careers, suggested employees consider moving to other companies, solicited employees' participation in FACE-Intel, and urged employees to inform themselves further by visiting FACE-Intel's Web site. Recipients who wished could be removed from FACE-Intel's mailing list. D never sent messages to anyone who requested removal. P attempted to block the messages but was unsuccessful. P demanded in writing that D and FACE-Intel stop sending e-mails to P's computer system, P asserted the organization had a right to communicate with willing P employees; he sent a new mass mailing in September 1998. There is no evidence that D ever breached P's computer security in order to obtain the recipient addresses for his messages. There was no evidence that the receipt or internal distribution of D's electronic messages damaged P's computer system or slowed or impaired its functioning. The messages did cause serious internal disruption and an allocation of resources to stop the emails. P sued D and FACE-Intel, pleading causes of action for trespass to chattels and nuisance, and seeking both actual damages and an injunction against further e-mail messages. P later voluntarily dismissed its nuisance claim and waived its demand for damages. The trial court entered default against FACE-Intel upon that organization's failure to answer. The court then granted P's motion for summary judgment, permanently enjoining D, FACE-Intel, and their agents 'from sending unsolicited e-mail to addresses on Intel's computer systems.' P appealed; FACE-Intel did not. The Court of Appeal, with one justice dissenting, affirmed the grant of injunctive relief. The majority took the view that the use of or intermeddling with another's personal property is actionable as a trespass to chattels without proof of any actual injury to the personal property; even if P could not show any damages resulting from D's sending of messages, 'it showed he was disrupting its business by using its property and therefore is entitled to injunctive relief based on a theory of trespass to chattels.' The dissenting justice warned that the majority's application of the trespass to chattels tort to 'unsolicited electronic mail that causes no harm to the private computer system that receives it' would 'expand the tort of trespass to chattel in untold ways and to unanticipated circumstances.'