Ruling Lets Unwanted E-Mail In

SAN FRANCISCO -- Companies cannot use the courts to block bulk e-mail to employees simply because employers object to the messages, the California Supreme Court ruled Monday.

In a widely watched Internet case, the state high court rejected on a 4-3 vote lower court rulings that allowed companies to obtain court orders to prevent others from “trespassing” on their e-mail systems.

Monday’s ruling was the first of its kind in the nation, according to William M. McSwain, an attorney in the case, and probably will affect what other state high courts do in similar disputes. The court ruled that senders of unsolicited e-mail are not trespassing on another’s property unless the messages physically harm the company’s computer system.

“This is a watershed decision for the Internet,” said McSwain, who represented the defendant, a former Intel worker. “It is essentially going to preserve the open character of the Internet.”

The case was based on a lawsuit that Intel Corp. brought against the former employee, who sent Intel workers tens of thousands of messages critical of the company after he was fired.

University of Chicago law professor Richard A. Epstein, who represented industry in the case, countered that the ruling may “unleash the cranks of the world.”

“I could easily see cases in which all sorts of groups with single causes and great passions and hatreds might desire to target organizations,” he said.

The decision does not prevent companies from taking internal measures to block unwanted e-mail. They simply can’t obtain court orders on trespass grounds to stop the senders whose messages make it past their electronic filters.

“This is saying self-help yes, legal protection no,” Epstein said.

Monday’s decision does not affect a state law that allows for prosecution of companies that send unwanted commercial e-mail even after the recipients state that they do not want such communications. Companies also may still go to court to try to stop e-mails that defame others or invade personal privacy.

Kourosh Kenneth Hamidi, who sent the bulk e-mail to Intel workers at company addresses, said he was elated by the ruling. Hamidi, an Iranian immigrant who is now an American citizen, lives outside Sacramento with his wife and two daughters.

“What a feeling -- freedom!” said Hamidi, 56, who works for the state Franchise Tax Board. “In people vs. corporations, people won.”

Intel fired Hamidi in 1995 for failing to return to work after a medical leave. Hamidi had been embroiled in a protracted dispute with Intel over a workers’ compensation claim, a battle that Intel won.

The former engineer said he was distraught and suicidal after his firing. He said he turned his life around when he formed a support group for current and past Intel workers, which has its own Web site. Hamidi also sent six waves of e-mail critical of the company’s labor practices to thousands of Intel employees.

“Annual review time is very close,” he warned in one e-mail. “Unfortunately many of you ... will be terminated ....We can help.”

The company tried to erect barriers to block Hamidi’s e-mail, but he found ways around them. Eventually, the giant chip-maker obtained a court order preventing Hamidi from trespassing on Intel’s e-mail system. A Court of Appeal in Sacramento upheld the order.

The order was based on a legal doctrine involving private property other than real estate. Someone engages in trespass on such property only if it is damaged or temporarily taken away from its owner.

Creating a legal right for firms to exclude unwanted messages from an e-mail and Web server might discourage annoying spam, but would also “create substantial new costs ... in lost ease and openness of communication,” Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar wrote for the majority

Werdegar said the doctrine requires actual physical damage to the property, not tangential effects on worker morale. Intel’s computer system was not damaged, nor was there any evidence that Hamidi’s messages slowed Intel’s e-mail service.

Intel’s claims that the e-mails diminished worker productivity “is not an injury to the company’s interest in its computers ... any more than the personal distress caused by reading an unpleasant letter would be an injury to the recipient’s mailbox,” Werdegar wrote.

Internet service providers have previously sued senders of commercial e-mail and won under the trespass theory. Werdegar said the court’s decision in Intel was consistent with those cases. Those decisions were based on the fact that the bulk mailings damaged computer servers by slowing the system and making it harder for customers to gain access.

Justice Joyce Kennard, in a concurring opinion, said she sympathized with Intel.

“Unsolicited and unwanted bulk e-mail, most of it commercial, is a serious annoyance and inconvenience,” she wrote. She said Intel could direct its employees to delete Hamidi’s messages and sue Hamidi on other grounds, such as defamation.

Justices Marvin Baxter and Ming W. Chin disqualified themselves from the case. Justices typically disqualify themselves when they have a conflict of interest, such as stock in a company. Sitting in for Baxter and Chin were Court of Appeal justices Steven Perren and Richard Mosk, both Democrats appointed by Gov. Gray Davis. Perren sided with the majority, Mosk with the dissenters.

In a dissent joined by Chief Justice Ronald M. George, Mosk said Intel was harmed by the costs of efforts to block Hamidi’s messages and diminished employee productivity.

Hamidi’s actions were akin to “intruding into a private office mailroom, commandeering the mail cart and dropping off unwanted broadsides on 30,000 desks,” Mosk wrote.

“Just as Intel can, and does, regulate the use of its computer system by its employees, it should be entitled to control its use by outsiders and to seek injunctive relief when self-help fails.”

Justice Janice Rogers Brown also dissented, complaining that the majority showed an “antipathy to property rights.” She said Hamidi “wrongly expropriated” Intel’s property.

“Those who have contempt for grubby commerce and reverence for the rarified heights of intellectual discourse may applaud today’s decision,” she wrote. “But even the flow of ideas will be curtailed if the right to exclude is denied.”

Chuck Malloy, a spokesman for Santa Clara-based Intel, said the company was studying the ruling.

“We are going to assess our options in the event Mr. Hamidi resumes his spamming against Intel,” Malloy said.

Because the ruling is based on California law, the state Supreme Court normally has the final say.

Mark Theodore, who represented the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in the case, called the ruling “a negative thing for business” because disgruntled individuals can now target a company’s e-mail system.

But he said Intel may still prevail against Hamidi if the company finds evidence that any future messages take up valuable memory or in any way hurt the corporation’s server.

Hamidi stopped his e-mails after he lost the case in the lower courts. He said he will soon resume sending Intel employees e-mail about the “very nasty things” Intel does to employees to reduce its costs.

“Absolutely,” he said. “I am going to use the privilege to the max.”