Justia U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Royal employed Kraft and Matthews (Defendants) in its sales team. Royal’s employee handbook prohibited using company equipment for personal activities; unauthorized use, retention, or disclosure of any of Royal’s resources or property; and sending or posting trade secrets or proprietary information outside the organization. Royal’s “GPS Tracking Policy” stated, “[e]mployees may not disable or interfere with the GPS (or any other) functions on a company-issued cell phone,” nor may employees “remove any software, functions or apps.” The Defendants resigned to become employed with one of Royal’s competitors. Royal discovered that, shortly before his resignation, Kraft forwarded from his Royal email account to his personal one quotes for Royal customers and Royal paystubs; contacted a Royal customer through Royal’s email server to ask the customer to send “all the new vendor info” to Kraft’s personal email account; then deleted and reinstalled the operating system on his company-issued laptop, rendering its data unrecoverable. Matthews did much the same and announced her resignation on social media, sharing a link to the song, “You Can Take This Job and Shove It.”Royal sued, citing the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), 18 U.S.C. 1030, which refers to one who “intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access, and thereby obtains . . . information from any protected computer.” The district court concluded that the Defendants did not “exceed[]” their “authorized access,” under CFAA. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. While their conduct might violate company policy, state law, perhaps another federal law, the employees were authorized to access the information in question. View "Royal Truck & Trailer Sales & Service, Inc. v. Kraft" on Justia Law

The Playpen website, a message board for advertising and distributing child pornography, is within the “dark-web,” protected by the “Tor hidden service network,” rendering the website relatively inaccessible. A foreign law enforcement agency alerted FBI agents of its suspicions that a U.S.-based IP address was used to house Playpen. Agents identified the server and executed a search warrant, which allowed them to create a duplicate server at a government facility in the Eastern District of Virginia. The FBI assumed administrative control of the website, then obtained a search warrant from the Eastern District of Virginia to employ a Network Investigative Technique (NIT) to unmask anonymous users. The NIT warrant led the District Court of the Southern District of Ohio to issue a search warrant that allowed authorities to search Bateman’s residence and computer where they found over 599 illicit images of children. The Sixth Circuit affirmed the denial of motions to suppress the evidence and for a "Franks" hearing, to question Agent Macfarlane, who submitted the affidavit to obtain the NIT warrant. The search of Bateman’s home was valid under the good-faith exception. Agent Macfarlane’s affidavit provided a detailed and sufficiently specific picture of Playpen and of the NIT program; it accurately described the locations to be searched, which necessarily included locations outside of the Eastern District of Virginia, and accurately described the NIT’s operation as triggered only when an activating computer’s signals entered the Eastern District of Virginia. View "United States v. Bateman" on Justia Law

Novak created a “farcical Facebook account” that looked like the Parma Police Department’s official page. The page was up for 12 hours and published posts including a recruitment advertisement that “strongly encourag[ed] minorities to not apply.” and an advertisement for a “Pedophile Reform" event. Some of its about 100 followers thought it was funny. Others were angry or confused and called the police station. The Department posted a warning on its official Facebook page. Novak reposted that warning on his page, to “deepen his satire.” Novak deleted “pedantic comments” on his page explaining that the page was fake, The Department contacted Facebook requesting that the page be shut down and informed local news outlets. Novak deleted his creation. Based on a search warrant and subpoena, Facebook disclosed that Novak was behind the fake. The police obtained warrants to search Novak’s apartment and to arrest him, stating that Novak unlawfully impaired the department’s functions. Novak responded that, other than 12 minutes of phone calls, the police department suffered no disruption. Novak was acquitted, then sued, alleging violations of his constitutional and statutory rights. The district court dismissed in part, with 26 claims remaining. The Sixth Circuit granted the officers qualified immunity on claims related to anonymous speech, censorship in a public forum, and the right to receive speech were dismissed. View "Novak v. City of Parma" on Justia Law

Team sells materials to help individuals profit in multi-level marketing businesses. Doe anonymously runs the “Amthrax” blog, in which he criticizes multi-level marketing companies and Team. Doe posted a hyperlink to a downloadable copy of the entirety of “The Team Builder’s Textbook,” copyrighted by Team. After Team served the blog’s host with a take-down notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 512, Doe removed the hyperlink. Team filed suit, seeking only injunctive relief and that the court identify Doe. Doe asserted fair-use and copyright-misuse defenses and that he has a First Amendment right to speak anonymously. The court ultimately entered summary judgment for Team, found that unmasking Doe “was unnecessary to ensure that defendant would not engage in future infringement” and that “defendant has already declared ... that he has complied with the proposed injunctive relief” by destroying the copies of the Textbook in his possession such that “no further injunctive relief is necessary.” The Sixth Circuit remanded with respect to unmasking Doe; the district court failed to recognize the presumption in favor of open judicial records. View "Signature Management Team, LLC v. Doe" on Justia Law

Luis, a resident of Florida, developed an online personal relationship with Ohio resident, Catherine. The relationship was apparently platonic, but Catherine’s husband, Joseph, was suspicious and secretly installed WebWatcher on Catherine’s computer to monitor her communications. According to Luis, WebWatcher and its manufacturer, Awareness, surreptitiously intercepted the emails, instant messages, and other communications between Luis and Catherine and disclosed the communications to Joseph, who used them as leverage to divorce Catherine on favorable terms. Luis filed suit and eventually settled his claims against all defendants except Awareness, against which he alleged violations of the federal Wiretap Act, 18 U.S.C. 2511-2512, the Ohio Wiretap Act, and Ohio common law. The district court dismissed, reasoning that concluded that Awareness did not “intercept” Luis’s communications because it was Joseph—not Awareness—that installed the WebWatcher program. The Sixth Circuit reversed, stating that the lower court failed to take into account the extent to which Awareness itself was allegedly engaged in the asserted violations, noting Awareness’s continued operation of the WebWatcher program, even after that program is sold to a user. Luis’s complaint sufficiently alleged that Awareness​ (via WebWatcher) acquires communications in a manner that is contemporaneous with their transmission. View "Luis v. Zang" on Justia Law

Tennessee and North Carolina municipalities that provide broadband service would like to expand their networks beyond their current territorial boundaries to underserved nearby areas. State laws either forbid or put onerous restrictions on such expansion by municipal telecommunications providers. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), citing its statutory mandates to remove barriers to broadband service and to promote competition in the telecommunications market, issued an order purporting to preempt these state statutory provisions. The Sixth Circuit reversed the order, which “essentially serves to re-allocate decision-making power between the states and their municipalities.” No federal statute or FCC regulation requires the municipalities to expand or otherwise to act in contravention of the preempted state statutory provisions. This preemption by the FCC of the allocation of power between a state and its subdivisions requires at least a clear statement in the authorizing federal legislation. Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, cited by the FCC, states that the FCC “shall” take action to promote broadband deployment, but “falls far short of such a clear statement.” View "State of Tenn. v. Fed. Commc'n Comm'n" on Justia Law

O’Kroley googled himself and found “Texas Advance Sheet,” followed by “indecency with a child in Trial Court Cause N . . . Colin O’Kroley v Pringle.” O’Kroley was never involved in an indecency case; his case was listed immediately after such a case, on a service that summarizes judicial opinions. If users clicked the link they would see that the cases were unrelated. Claiming “severe mental anguish,” O’Kroley sued Google for $19,200,000,000,000, asserting “libel,” “invasion of privacy,” “failure to provide due process,” “cruel and unusual punishment,” “cyber-bullying,” and “psychological torture.” The court dismissed, citing the Communications Decency Act, which insulates interactive computer services from certain lawsuits, 47 U.S.C. 230. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. Google is an interactive computer service, providing “access by multiple users to a computer server,” not the publisher or speaker of the allegedly defamatory content. A separate “entity [was] responsible . . . for the [content’s] creation.” Google cannot be held liable for merely providing access to, and reproducing, the allegedly defamatory text. “ Google performed some automated editorial acts on the content, such as removing spaces and altering font, and kept the search result up even after O’Kroley complained; these acts come within “a publisher’s traditional editorial functions.” View "O'Kroley v. Fastcase, Inc" 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

America’s largest law school, Thomas M. Cooley, has four Michigan campuses and one in Florida and about 3,500 students. . Anziska was “of counsel” at a New York law firm. On June 8, 2011, under the title “Investigating the Thomas Cooley School of Law,” Anziska posted on the website “JD Underground,” that the firm was investigating law schools for preying on the ignorance of “naive, clueless 22-year-olds. Perhaps one of the worst offenders is the Thomas Cooley School of Law, which grossly inflates its post-graduate employment data and salary information…. students are defaulting on loans at an astounding 41 percent… most likely … will continue to defraud unwitting students unless held civilly accountable. If you have any relevant information or know of anyone who has attended Thomas Cooley … correspondences will be kept strictly confidential.” On June 13, the firm received a cease-and-desist letter from Cooley, claiming that the post was defamatory. On June 15, under the title “Retraction re: Investigating the Thomas Cooley School of Law,” a partner posted on JD Underground that the earlier post “contained certain allegations which may have been couched as fact regarding employment and default data. These statements are hereby retracted.” Meanwhile, Anziska disseminated a draft proposed class action complaint involving 18 former or current Cooley students, containing the same allegations. The complaint became publicly available on the internet. Cooley sued, alleging defamation, tortious interference with business relations, breach of contract, and false light. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of defendants. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. Cooley was a limited-purpose public figure and the record would not allow a reasonable jury to conclude that the defendants published the challenged statements with actual malice.View "Thomas M. Cooley Law Sch. v. Kurzon Strauss, LLP" on Justia Law

The Dirty World website enables users to anonymously upload comments, photographs, and video, which Richie selects and publishes along with his own editorial comments. Jones is a Kentucky high school teacher and a member of the cheerleading squad for the Cincinnati Bengals football team. She was the subject of several submissions posted by anonymous users and of editorial remarks posted by Richie, including photographs of Jones and a statement that she “slept with every other Bengal Football player.” Jones requested that the post be removed. Richie declined. A subsequent post alleged that her former boyfriend “tested positive for Chlamydia Infection and Gonorrhea ... sure Sarah also has both ... he brags about doing sarah in … her class room at the school she teaches at DIXIE Heights." Richie's responded to the post: “Why are all high school teachers freaks in the sack?” Jones brought claims of defamation, libel per se, false light, and intentional inflection of emotional distress. The district court rejected arguments that the claims were barred by the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA), 47 U.S.C. 230. A second trial resulted in a verdict for $38,000 in compensatory damages and $300,000 in punitive damages. The Sixth Circuit reversed. Under the CDA, Richie and Dirty World were neither creators nor developers of the challenged content. Jones’s tort claims are grounded on the statements of another content provider, but sought to impose liability on Dirty World and Richie as if they were the publishers or speakers of those statements. Section 230(c)(1) bars those claims. View "Jones v. Dirty World Entm't" on Justia Law