Court Opinion

ID: 9781782
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-30 17:32:00.836015+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:34:39.381734
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J.,* Dissenting.
The majority hold that the California tort of trespass to chattels does not encompass the use of expressly unwanted *1386electronic mail that causes no physical damage or impairment to the recipient’s computer system. They also conclude that because a computer system is not like real property, the rules of trespass to real property are also inapplicable to the circumstances in this case. Finally, they suggest that an injunction to preclude mass, noncommercial, unwelcome e-mails may offend the interests of free communication.
I respectfully disagree and would affirm the trial court’s decision. In my view, the repeated transmission of bulk e-mails by appellant Kourosh Kenneth Hamidi (Hamidi) to the employees of Intel Corporation (Intel) on its proprietary confidential e-mail lists, despite Intel’s demand that he cease such activities, constituted an actionable trespass to chattels. The majority fail to distinguish open communication in the public “commons” of the Internet from unauthorized intermeddling on a private, proprietary intranet. Hamidi is not communicating in the equivalent of a town square or of an unsolicited “junk” mailing through the United States Postal Service. His action, in crossing from the public Internet into a private intranet, is more like intruding into a private office mailroom, commandeering the mail cart, and dropping off unwanted broadsides on 30,000 desks. Because Intel’s security measures have been circumvented by Hamidi, the majority leave Intel, which has exercised all reasonable self-help efforts, with no recourse unless he causes a malfunction or systems “crash.” Hamidi’s repeated intrusions did more than merely “prompt[] discussions between ‘[ejxcited and nervous managers’ and the company’s human resources department” (maj. opn., ante, at p. 1349); they also constituted a misappropriation of Intel’s private computer system contrary to its intended use and against Intel’s wishes.
The law of trespass to chattels has not universally been limited to physical damage. I believe it is entirely consistent to apply that legal theory to these circumstances—that is, when a proprietary computer system is being used contrary to its owner’s purposes and expressed desires, and self-help has been ineffective. Intel correctly expects protection from an intruder who misuses its proprietary system, its nonpublic directories, and its supposedly controlled connection to the Internet to achieve his bulk mailing objectives—incidentally, without even having to pay postage.
I
Intel maintains an intranet—a proprietary computer network—as a tool for transacting and managing its business, both internally and for external *1387business communications.1 The network and its servers constitute a tangible entity that has value in terms of the costs of its components and its function in enabling and enhancing the productivity and efficiency of Intel’s business operations. Intel has established costly security measures to protect the integrity of its system, including policies about use, proprietary internal e-mail addresses that it does not release to the public for use outside of company business, and a gateway for blocking unwanted electronic mail—a so-called firewall.
The Intel computer usage guidelines, which are promulgated for its employees, state that the computer system is to be “used as a resource in conducting business. Reasonable personal use is permitted, but employees are reminded that these resources are the property of Intel and all information on these resources is also the property of Intel.” Examples of personal use that would not be considered reasonable expressly include “use that adversely affects productivity.” Employee e-mail communications are neither private nor confidential.
Hamidi, a former Intel employee who had sued Intel and created an organization to disseminate negative information about its employment practices, sent bulk electronic mail on six occasions to as many as 35,000 Intel employees on its proprietary computer system, using Intel’s confidential employee e-mail lists and adopting a series of different origination addresses and encoding strategies to elude Intel’s blocking efforts. He refused to stop when requested by Intel to do so, asserting that he would ignore its demands: “I don’t care. I have grown deaf.” Intel sought injunctive relief, alleging that the disruptive effect of the bulk electronic mail, including expenses from administrative and management personnel, damaged its interest in the proprietary nature of its network.
The trial court, in its order granting summary judgment and a permanent injunction, made the following pertinent findings regarding Hamidi’s transmission of bulk electronic mail: “Intel has requested that Hamidi stop sending the messages, but Hamidi has refused, and has employed surreptitious means to circumvent Intel’s efforts to block entry of his messages into *1388Intel’s system. . . . [|] . . . The e-mail system is dedicated for use in conducting business, including communications between Intel employees and its customers and vendors. Employee e-mail addresses are not published for use outside company business. . . . [|] The intrusion by Hamidi into the Intel e-mail system has resulted in the expenditure of company resources to seek to block his mailings and to address employee concerns about the mailings. Given Hamidi’s evasive techniques to avoid blocking, the self help remedy available to Intel is ineffective.” The trial court concluded that “the evidence establishes (without dispute) that Intel has been injured by diminished employee productivity and in devoting company resources to blocking efforts and to addressing employees about Hamidi’s e-mails.” The trial court further found that the “massive” intrusions “impaired the value to Intel of its e-mail system.”
The majority agree that an impairment of Intel’s system would result in an action for trespass to chattels, but find that Intel suffered no injury. As did the trial court, I conclude that the undisputed evidence establishes that Intel was substantially harmed by the costs of efforts to block the messages and diminished employee productivity. Additionally, the injunction did not affect Hamidi’s ability to communicate with Intel employees by other means; he apparently continues to maintain a Web site to publicize his messages concerning the company. Furthermore, I believe that the trial court and the Court of Appeal correctly determined that the tort of trespass to chattels applies in these circumstances.
The Restatement Second of Torts explains that a trespass to a chattel occurs if “the chattel is impaired as to its condition, quality, or value” or if “harm is caused to some . . . thing in which the possessor has a legally protected interest.” (Rest.2d Torts, § 218, subds. (b) & (d), p. 420, italics added.) As to this tort, a current prominent treatise on the law of torts explains that “[t]he defendant may interfere with the chattel by interfering with the plaintiffs access or use” and observes that the tort has been applied so as “to protect computer systems from electronic invasions by way of unsolicited email or the like.” (1 Dobbs, The Law of Torts (2001) § 60, pp. 122-123.) Moreover, “[t]he harm necessary to trigger liability for trespass to chattels can be . . . harm to something other than the chattel itself.” (Id., pp. 124-125; see also 1 Harper et al., The Law of Torts (3d ed. 1996 & 2003 supp.) § 2.3, pp. 2:14-2:18.) The Restatement points out that, unlike a possessor of land, a possessor of a chattel is not given legal protection from harmless invasion, but the “actor” may be liable if the conduct affects “some other and more important interest of the possessor.” (Rest.2d Torts, § 218, com. e, p. 421, italics added.)
The Restatement explains that the rationale for requiring harm for trespass to a chattel but not for trespass to land is the availability and effectiveness of *1389self-help in the case of trespass to a chattel. “Sufficient legal protection of the possessor’s interest in the mere inviolability of his chattel is afforded by his privilege to use reasonable force to protect his possession against even harmless interference.” (Rest.2d Torts, § 218, com. e, p. 422.) Obviously, “force” is not available to prevént electronic trespasses. As shown by Intel’s inability to prevent Hamidi’s intrusions, self-help is not an adequate alternative to injunctive relief.
The common law tort of trespass to chattels does not require physical disruption to the chattel. It also may apply when there is impairment to the “quality” or “value” of the chattel. (Rest.2d Torts, § 218, subd. b, p. 420; see also id., com. e, pp. 421-422 [liability if “intermeddling is harmful to the possessor’s materially valuable interest in the physical condition, quality, or value of the chattel”].) Moreover, as we held in Zaslow v. Kroenert (1946) 29 Cal.2d 541, 551 [176 P.2d 1], it also applies “[w]here the conduct complained of does not amount to a substantial interference with possession or the right thereto, but consists of intermeddling with or use of or damages to the personal property.”2
Here, Hamidi’s deliberate and continued intermeddling, and threatened intermeddling, with Intel’s proprietary computer system for his own purposes that were hostile to Intel, certainly impaired the quality and value of the system as an internal business device for Intel and forced Intel to incur costs to try to maintain the security and integrity of its server—efforts that proved ineffective. These included costs incurred to mitigate injuries that had already occurred. It is not a matter of “bootstrapping]” (maj. opn., ante, at p. 1359) to consider those costs a damage to Intel. Indeed, part of the value of the proprietary computer system is the ability to exclude intermeddlers from entering it for significant uses that are disruptive to its owner’s business operations.
If Intel, a large business with thousands of former employees, is unable to prevent Hamidi from continued intermeddling, it is not unlikely that other outsiders who obtain access to its proprietary electronic mail addresses would engage in similar conduct, further reducing the value of, and perhaps debilitating, the computer system as a business productivity mechanism. Employees understand that a firewall is in place and expect that the messages they receive are from senders permitted by the corporation. Violation *1390of this expectation increases the internal disruption caused by messages that circumvent the company’s attempt to exclude them. The time that each employee must spend to evaluate, delete or respond to the message, when added up, constitutes an amount of compensated time that translates to quantifiable financial damage.3
All of these costs to protect the integrity of the computer system and to deal with the disruptive effects of the transmissions and the expenditures attributable to employee time constitute damages sufficient to establish the existence of a trespass to chattels, even if the computer system was not overburdened to the point of a “crash” by the bulk electronic mail.
The several courts that have applied the tort of trespass to chattels to deliberate intermeddling with proprietary computer systems have, for the most part, used a similar analysis. Thus, the court in CompuServe Inc. v. Cyber Promotions, Inc. (S.D. Ohio 1997) 962 F.Supp. 1015, 1022, applied the Restatement to conclude that mass mailings and evasion of the server’s filters diminished the value of the mail processing computer equipment to CompuServe “even though it is not physically damaged by defendants’ conduct.” The inconvenience to users of the system as a result of the mass messages “decrease[d] the utility of CompuServe’s e-mail service” and was actionable as a trespass to chattels. (Id. at p. 1023.)
The court in America Online, Inc. v. IMS (E.D.Va. 1998) 24 F.Supp.2d 548, on facts similar to those in the present case, also applied the Restatement in a trespass to chattels claim. There, defendant sent unauthorized e-mails to America Online’s computer system, persisting after receiving notice to desist and causing the company “to spend technical resources and *1391staff time to ‘defend’ its computer system and its membership” against the unwanted messages. (Id. at p. 549.) The company was not required to show that its computer system was overwhelmed or suffered a diminution in performance; mere use of the system by the defendant was sufficient to allow the plaintiff to prevail on the trespass to chattels claim.
Similarly, the court in eBay, Inc. v. Bidder’s Edge, Inc. (N.D.Cal. 2000) 100 F.Supp.2d 1058 determined that there was a trespass to chattels when the quality or value of a computer system was diminished by unauthorized “web crawlers,”4 despite the fact that eBay had not alleged any “particular service disruption” (eBay, at p. 1065) or “specific incremental damages” (id. at p. 1063) to the computer system. Intermeddling with eBay’s private property was sufficient to establish a cause of action: “A trespasser is liable when the trespass diminishes the condition, quality or value of personal property”; “[e]ven if [defendant’s intrusions] use only a small amount of eBay’s computer . . . capacity, [defendant] has nonetheless deprived eBay of the ability to use that portion of its personal property for its own purposes. The law recognizes no such right to use another’s personal property.” (Id. at p. 1071; see also, e.g., Oyster Software, Inc. v. Forms Processing, Inc. (N.D.Cal., Dec. 6, 2001, No. C-00-0724 JCS) 2001 WL 1736382 at *12 -*13 [trespass to chattels claim did not require company to demonstrate physical damage]; accord, Register.com, Inc. v. Verio, Inc. (S.D.N.Y. 2000) 126 F.Supp.2d 238, 250; cf. Thrifty-Tel, Inc. v. Bezenek (1996) 46 Cal.App.4th 1559, 1566-1567 [54 Cal.Rptr.2d 468] [unconsented electronic access to a computer system constituted a trespass to chattels].)
These cases stand for the simple proposition that owners of computer systems, like owners of other private property, have a right to prevent others from using their property against their interests. That principle applies equally in this case. By his repeated intermeddling, Hamidi converted Intel’s private employee e-mail system into a tool for harming productivity and disrupting Intel’s workplace. Intel attempted to put a stop to Hamidi’s intrusions by increasing its electronic screening measures and by requesting that he desist. Only when self-help proved futile, devolving into a potentially endless joust between attempted prevention and circumvention, did Intel request and obtain equitable relief in the form of an injunction to prevent further threatened injury.
The majority suggest that Intel is not entitled to injunctive relief because it chose to allow its employees access to e-mail through the Internet and *1392because Hamidi has apparently told employees that he will remove them from his mailing list if they so request. They overlook the proprietary nature of Intel’s intranet system; Intel’s system is not merely a conduit for messages to its employees. As the owner of the computer system, it is Intel’s request that Hamidi stop that must be respected. The fact that, like most large businesses, Intel’s intranet includes external e-mail access for essential business purposes does not logically mean, as the majority suggest, that Intel has forfeited the right to determine who has access to its system. Its intranet is not the equivalent of a common carrier or public communications licensee that would be subject to requirements to provide service and access. 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.
The majority also propose that Intel has sufficient avenues for legal relief outside of trespass to chattels, such as interference with prospective economic relations, interference with contract, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and defamation; Hamidi urges that an action for nuisance is more appropriate. Although other causes of action may under certain circumstances also apply to Hamidi’s conduct, the remedy based on trespass to chattels is the most efficient and appropriate. It simply requires Hamidi to stop the unauthorized use of property without regard to the content of the transmissions. Unlike trespass to chattels, the other potential causes of action suggested by the majority and Hamidi would require an evaluation of the transmissions’ content and, in the case of a nuisance action, for example, would involve questions of degree and value judgments based on competing interests. (See Heilman v. La Cumbre Golf & Country Club (1992) 6 Cal.App.4th 1224, 1230-1231 [8 Cal.Rptr.2d 293]; 11 Witkin, Summary of Cal. Law (9th ed. 1990) Equity, § 153, p. 833; Rest.2d Torts, § 840D). •
II
As discussed above, I believe that existing legal principles are adequate to support Intel’s request for injunctive relief. But even if the injunction in this case amounts to an extension of the traditional tort of trespass to chattels, this is one of those cases in which, as Justice Cardozo suggested, “[t]he creative element in the judicial process finds its opportunity and power” in the development of the law. (Cardozo, Nature of the Judicial Process (1921) p. 165.)5
The law has evolved to meet economic, social, and scientific changes in society. The industrial revolution, mass production, and new transportation *1393and communication systems all required the adaptation and evolution of legal doctrines.
The age of computer technology and cyberspace poses new challenges to legal principles. As this court has said, “the so-called Internet revolution has spawned a host of new legal issues as courts have struggled to apply traditional legal frameworks to this new communication medium.” (Pavlovich v. Superior Court (2002) 29 Cal.4th 262, 266 [127 Cal.Rptr.2d 329, 58 P.3d 2].) The court must now grapple with proprietary interests, privacy, and expression arising out of computer-related disputes. Thus, in this case the court is faced with “that balancing of judgment, that testing and sorting of considerations of analogy and logic and utility and fairness” that Justice Cardozo said he had “been trying to describe.” (Cardozo, Nature of the Judicial Process, supra, pp. 165-166.) Additionally, this is a case in which equitable relief is sought. As Bernard Witkin has written, “equitable relief is flexible and expanding, and the theory that ‘for every wrong there is a remedy’ [Civ. Code, § 3523] may be invoked by equity courts to justify the invention of new methods of relief for new types of wrongs.” (11 Witkin, Summary of Cal. Law, supra, Equity, § 3, p. 681.) That the Legislature has dealt with some aspects of commercial unsolicited bulk e-mail (Bus. & Prof. Code, §§ 17538.4, 17538.45; see maj. opn., ante, at pp. 1363-1364) should not inhibit the application of common law tort principles to deal with e-mail transgressions not covered by the legislation. (Cf. California Assn, of Health Facilities v. Department of Health Services (1997) 16 Cal.4th 284, 297 [65 Cal.Rptr.2d 872, 940 P.2d 323]; I.E. Associates v. Safeco Title Ins. Co. (1985) 39 Cal.3d 281, 285 [216 Cal.Rptr. 438, 702 P.2d 596].)
Before the computer, a person could not easily cause significant disruption to another’s business or personal affairs through methods of communication without significant cost. With the computer, by a mass mailing, one person can at no cost disrupt, damage, and interfere with another’s property, business, and personal interests. Here, the law should allow Intel to protect its computer-related property from the unauthorized, harmful, free use by intruders.
Ill
As the Court of Appeal observed, connecting one’s driveway to the general system of roads does not invite demonstrators to use the property as a public forum. Not mindful of this precept, the majority blur the distinction between public and private computer networks in the interest of “ease and openness of communication.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 1363.) By upholding Intel’s right to exercise self-help to restrict Hamidi’s bulk e-mails, they *1394concede that he did not have a right to send them through Intel’s proprietary system. Yet they conclude that injunctive relief is unavailable to Intel because it connected its e-mail system to the Internet and thus, “necessarily contemplated” unsolicited communications to its employees. (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 1359.) Their exposition promotes unpredictability in a manner that could be as harmful to open communication as it is to property rights. It permits Intel to block Hamidi’s e-mails entirely, but offers no recourse if he succeeds in breaking through its security barriers, unless he physically or functionally degrades the system.
By making more concrete damages a requirement for a remedy, the majority have rendered speech interests dependent on the impact of the e-mails. The sender will never know when or if the mass e-mails sent by him (and perhaps others) will use up too much space or cause a crash in the recipient system, so as to fulfill the majority’s requirement of damages. Thus, the sender is exposed to the risk of liability because of the possibility of damages. If, as the majority suggest, such a risk will deter “ease and openness of communication” (maj. opn., ante, at p. 1363), the majority’s formulation does not eliminate such deterrence. Under the majority’s position, the lost freedom of communication still exists. In addition, a business could never reliably invest in a private network that can only be kept private by constant vigilance and inventiveness, or by simply shutting off the Internet, thus limiting rather than expanding the flow of information.6 Moreover, Intel would have less incentive to allow employees reasonable use of its equipment to send and receive personal e-mails if such allowance is justification for preventing restrictions on unwanted intrusions into its computer system. I believe the best approach is to clearly delineate private from public networks and identify as a trespass to chattels the kind of intermeddling involved here.
The views of the amici curiae group of intellectual property professors that a ruling in favor of Intel will interfere with communication are similarly misplaced because here, Intel, contrary to most users, expressly informed Hamidi that it did not want him sending messages through its system. Moreover, as noted above, all of the problems referred to will exist under the apparently accepted law that there is a cause of action if there is some actionable damage.
Hamidi and other amici curiae raise, for the first time on appeal, certain labor law issues, including the matter of protected labor-related communications. Even assuming that these issues are properly before this court (see *1395Cal. Rules of Court, rule 28(c)(1)), to the extent the laws allow what would otherwise be trespasses for some labor-related communications, my position does not exclude that here too. But there has been no showing that the communications are labor-law protected.7
Finally, with regard to alleged constitutional free speech concerns raised by Hamidi and others, this case involves a private entity seeking to enforce private rights against trespass. Unlike the majority, I have concluded that Hamidi did invade Intel’s property. His actions constituted a trespass—in this case a trespass to chattels. There is no federal or state constitutional right to trespass. (Adderley v. Florida (1966) 385 U.S. 39, 47 [87 S.Ct. 242, 247, 17 L.Ed.2d 149 ] [“Nothing in the Constitution of the United States prevents Florida from even-handed enforcement of its general trespass statute. . . .”]; Church of Christ in Hollywood v. Superior Court (2002) 99 Cal.App.4th 1244, 1253-1254 [121 Cal.Rptr.2d 810] [affirming a restraining order preventing former church member from entering church property: “[the United States Supreme Court] has never held that a trespasser or an uninvited guest may exercise general rights of free speech on property privately owned”]; see also CompuServe Inc. v. Cyber Promotions, Inc., supra, 962 F.Supp. at p. 1026 [“the mere judicial enforcement of neutral trespass laws by the private owner of property does not alone render it a state actor”]; Cyber Promotions, Inc. v. America Online, Inc. (E.D.Pa. 1996) 948 F.Supp. 436, 456 [“a private company such as Cyber simply does not have the unfettered right under the First Amendment to invade AOL’s private property . . . .”].) Accordingly, the cases cited by the majority regarding restrictions on speech, not trespass, are not applicable. Nor does the connection of Intel’s e-mail system to the Internet transform it into a public forum any more than any connection between private and public properties. Moreover, as noted above, Hamidi had adequate alternative means for communicating with Intel employees so that an injunction would not, under any theory, constitute a free speech violation. (Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner (1972) 407 U.S. 551, 568-569 [92 S.Ct. 2219, 2228-2229, 33 L.Ed.2d 131].)
IV
The trial court granted an injunction to prevent threatened injury to Intel. That is the purpose of an injunction. (Ernst & Ernst v. Carlson (1966) 247 Cal.App.2d 125, 128 [55 Cal.Rptr. 626].) Intel should not be helpless in the face of repeated and threatened abuse and contamination of its private computer system. The undisputed facts, in my view, rendered Hamidi’s *1396conduct legally actionable. Thus, the trial court’s decision to grant a permanent injunction was not “a clear abuse of discretion” that may be “disturbed on appeal.” (Shapiro v. San Diego City Council (2002) 96 Cal.App.4th 904, 912 [117 Cal.Rptr.2d 631]; see also City of Vernon v. Central Basin Mun. Water Dist. (1999) 69 Cal.App.4th 508, 516 [81 Cal.Rptr.2d 650] [in an appeal of summary judgment, the trial court’s decision to deny a permanent injunction was “governed by the abuse of discretion standard of review”].)
The injunction issued by the trial court simply required Hamidi to refrain from further trespassory conduct, drawing no distinction based on the content of his e-mails. Hamidi remains free to communicate with Intel employees and others outside the walls—both physical and electronic—of the company.
For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.
George, C. J., concurred.

 Associate Justice of the Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, Division Five, assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to article VI, section 6 of the California Constitution.

 The Oxford English Dictionary defines an intranet as “A local or restricted computer network; spec, a private or corporate network that uses Internet protocols. An intranet may (but need not) be connected to the Internet and be accessible externally to authorized users.” (OED Online, new ed., draft entry, Mar. 2003, <http://dictionary.oed.com/> [as of June 30, 2003]; see also Kokka, Property Rights on an Intranet, 3-Spring 1998 J. Tech.L. & Pol’y 3, WL 3 UFLJTLP 3 at *3, *6 [defining an intranet as “an internal network of computers, servers, routers and browser software designed to organize, secure, distribute and collect information within an organization,” which in large organizations generally includes a wide range of services, including e-mail].) Contrary to the majority’s assertion, there is nothing incorrect about characterizing Hamidi’s unauthorized bulk e-mails as intrusions onto Intel’s intranet.

 In Zaslow, we observed that when the trespass involves “intermeddling with or use of’ another’s property, the owner “may recover only the actual damages suffered by reason of the impairment of the property or the loss of its use.” (Zaslow v. Kroenert, supra, 29 Cal.2d at p. 551.) We did not state that such damages were a requirement for a cause of action; nor did we address the availability of injunctive relief.

 As the recent spate of articles on “spam”—unsolicited bulk e-mail—suggests, the effects on business of such unwanted intrusions are not trivial. “Spam is not just a nuisance. It absorbs bandwidth and overwhelms Internet service providers. Corporate tech staffs labor to deploy filtering technology to protect their networks. The cost is now widely estimated (though all such estimates are largely guesswork) at billions of dollars a year. The social costs are immeasurable. . . . ffl ‘Spam has become the organized crime of the Internet.’ . . . ‘[M]ore and more it’s becoming a systems and engineering and networking problem.’ ” (Gleick, Tangled Up in Spam, N.Y. Times (Feb. 9, 2003) magazine p. 1 <http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/09/> [as of June 30, 2003]; see also Cooper & Shogren, US., States Turn Focus to Curbing Spam, L.A. Times (May 1, 2003) p. A21, col. 2 [“Businesses are losing money with every moment that employees spend deleting”]; Turley, Congress Must Send Spammers a Message, L.A. Times (Apr. 21, 2003) p. B13, col. 5 [“Spam now costs American businesses about $9 billion a year in lost productivity and screening”]; Taylor, Spam’s Big Bang! (June 16, 2003) Time, p. 51 [“The time we spend deleting or defeating spam costs an estimated $8.9 billion a year in lost productivity”].) But the occasional spam addressed to particular employees does not pose nearly the same threat of impaired value as the concerted bulk mailings into one e-mail system at issue here, which mailings were sent to thousands of employees with the express purpose of disrupting business as usual.

 A “web crawler” is a computer program that operates across the Internet to obtain information from the Web sites of others. (eBay, Inc. v. Bidder’s Edge, Inc., supra, 100 F.Supp.2d at p. 1061, fn. 2.)

“It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV.” (Holmes, The Path of the Law (1897) 10 Harv. L.Rev. 457, 469.)

 Thus, the majority’s approach creates the perverse incentive for companies to invest less in computer capacity in order to protect their property. In the view of the majority, Hamidi’s massive e-mails would be actionable only if Intel had insufficient server or storage capacity to manage them.

 The bulk e-mail messages from Hamidi, a nonemployee, did not purport to spur employees into any collective action; he has conceded that “[t]his is not a drive to unionize.” Nor was his disruptive conduct part of any bona fide labor dispute.