Union sued under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for spamming

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals last week reversed a district court and reinstated a Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”) claim brought by an employer against a labor union for “bombarding” the computer systems of its sales and executive offices with emails and voicemails making it impossible for the company to communicate with its customers and vendors. Pulte Homes, Inc v. Laborers’ International Union of North America, 2011 WL 3274014 (6th Cir. Aug 2, 2011). This case is a good example of how the federal Circuit Courts of Appeal are taking control of the interpretation of the scope of the CFAA away from the district courts and applying it expansively to protect computer technology.

“To generate a high volume of calls, . . . [the Union] both hired an auto-dialing service and requested its members to call Pulte [Homes, a homebuilder]. It also encouraged its members, through postings on its website, to “fight back” by using . . . [the Union’s] server to send e-mails to specific Pulte executives. Most of the calls and e-mails concerned Pulte’s purported unfair labor practices, though some communications included threats and obscene language.” Id. at *1.

As the court pointed out, “it was the volume of the communications, and not their content, that injured Pulte. The calls clogged access to Pulte’s voicemail system, prevented its customers from reaching its sales offices and representatives, and even forced one Pulte employee to turn off her business cell phone. The e-mails wreaked more havoc: they overloaded Pulte’s system, which limits the number of e-mails in an inbox; and this, in turn, stalled normal business operations because Pulte’s employees could not access business-related e-mails or send e-mails to customers and vendors.” Id.