Clements-Jeffrey v. City of Springfield, Ohio, 2011 WL 3678397 (S.D. Ohio August 22, 2011) [PDF copy of opinion] Services that help track down stolen laptops and other lost mobile hardware are indispensable. Consider, for example, the year-long saga of Jeff Blakeman who used MobileMe to help recover his MacBook Pro that a TSA agent stole [...]
Posts Tagged ‘ecpa’
Using remote tracking software to find stolen laptop may have violated federal wiretap statute
August 29th, 2011
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Court sides with college accused of snooping on student’s email
August 11th, 2011
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Reichert v. Elizabethtown College, 2011 WL 3438318 (E.D.Pa. August 5, 2011) Plaintiff’s threatening behavior toward certain faculty members of his college led the administration to monitor plaintiff’s school-issued email account. Plaintiff’s lawsuit against the school included claims for violation of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), the Stored Communications Act (SCA), and common law invasion [...]
Court says law firm did not eavesdrop on employee phone calls
April 7th, 2011
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Bowden v. Kirkland & Ellis, 2011 WL 1211555 (7th Cir. April 1, 2011) Two former employees of a law firm sued the firm for violation of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, 18 USC 2510 et seq. and for violation of the Illinois Eavesdropping Act, 720 ILCS 5/14-2. The district court granted summary judgment in favor [...]
Mom violated wiretap law by bugging daughter’s teddy bear to eavesdrop on dad
March 4th, 2011
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Lewton v. Divingnzzo, 2011 WL 692292 (D.Neb. Feb. 18, 2011) Defendant thought her ex-husband was abusing their daughter during visitations. To prove these allegations in the custody case, defendant sewed an electronic recording device into the little girl’s favorite teddy bear. After the daughter returned from visiting with her father, the mom would unstitch the [...]
Divorce attorney did not conspire to violate the Electronic Communications Privacy Act
September 30th, 2010
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Court declines to recognize secondary liability for civil ECPA violation, holding that defendant’s divorce lawyer could not be a conspirator in a civil action alleging email interception. Garback v. Lossing, 2010 WL 3733971 (E.D.Mich. September 20, 2010) Plaintiff sued his ex-wife’s attorney for violation of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. He claimed that his ex-wife, [...]
Doctor’s wiretapping case under ECPA heads to trial
September 27th, 2010
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McCann v. Iroquois Memorial Hospital, No. 08-3420 (7th Cir. September 13, 2010) Mystery of how doctor’s dictation machine got turned on to record conversation between doctor and hospital employee is a question for the jury and should not have been decided on summary judgment. Two hospital employees — Dr. Lindberg and the director of physician [...]
Lack of knowledge of interception causes ECPA claims against website owners to fail
September 23rd, 2010
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Zinna v. Cook, No. 06-1733, 2010 WL 3604386 (D. Colo. September 7, 2010) Plaintiff sued for violation of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) claiming that defendants intercepted his email messages and posted them to a website called ColoradoWackoExposed.com. Defendants moved for summary judgment. The court granted the motion. It found that although similarities between [...]
Setting up Outlook rule to intercept another’s email can be a federal crime
September 16th, 2010
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U.S. v. Szymuszkiewicz, — F.3d —, 2010 WL 3503506 (7th Cir. September 9, 2010) Seventh Circuit upholds conviction of employee who secretly intercepted his boss’s email. A federal jury convicted the defendant, who was an IRS revenue officer, of violating the Wiretap Act (or the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, as some like to call it [...]
Email snooping can be intrusion upon seclusion
August 31st, 2009
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Analysis could also affect liability of enterprises using cloud computing technologies. Steinbach v. Village of Forest Park, No. 06-4215, 2009 WL 2605283 (N.D. Ill. Aug. 25, 2009) Local elected official Steinbach had an email account that was issued by the municipality. Third party Hostway provided the technology for the account. Steinbach logged in to her [...]
Scope of Electronic Communications Privacy Act may not be so narrow
June 15th, 2009
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Brahmana v. Lembo, No. 09-106, 2009 WL 1424438 (N.D. Cal. May 20, 2009) Plaintiff former employee Brahmana sued his former employer Cyberdata, claiming that Cyberdata violated the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (at 18 U.S.C. 2511) (“ECPA”). Brahmana claimed that Cyberdata used a keylogger to intercept the username and password for Brahmana’s personal email account. Cyberdata [...]
