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Court Dismisses Action against ISP for Suspending User Account
In Peter Hall and Big Bad Productions, Inc. v. Earthlink Network, Inc., the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the decision of the District Court of the Southern District of New York dismissing the Plaintiff's action.
In that decision, the Defendant ISP, the Respondent in this appeal, filed a motion for summary judgment in connection with the Plaintiff's claims for breach of contract, breach of implied covenants of good faith and dealing, violation of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (the Federal Wiretap Act), libel, negligent appropriation of electronic communications, and intentional appropriation of electronic communications.
The Plaintiff, Peter Hall, a self-employed film producer, used his email account to inform people of the premier of his movie. Once the ISP was notified of this action which it considered to be spamming, his account was terminated and his account name was placed on a list of email abusers. His account was re-instated when the ISP learned that his emails were not necessarily spam mailings. On a motion for summary judgment, the New York Court dismissed the Plaintiff's action and held that the lost profits for the movie were too speculative and would not support a breach of contract claim, his account name on a spammer list was not defamation, his business was not damaged by the short period of time that his account was inactive, no special damages could be awarded since once again any losses were too speculative.
For additional information, visit:
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/2nd/040384p.pdf