In 2001, Bonnie Van Alstyne alleged that her boss at Electronic Scriptorium Limited (“ELS”), Edward Leonard, sexually propositioned her. Shortly after she declined those advances, she was terminated by ELS. Van Alstyne then sued Leonard and ELS for (1) sexual harassment under the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, (2) unemployment benefits under the Virginia Employment Commission and (3) unpaid commissions. This blog isn’t about any of that.

ELS responded by filing its own charges in Virginia state court alleging business torts against Van Alstyne. In a 2006 deposition, ELS used emails from Van Alstyne as exhibits. The problem was that the emails were not from her business account, but her personal AOL account. (This is really the only problem in this case. If Leonard would have stopped opening up his employees email accounts, I wouldn’t have to write anymore. But since I already started…). Concerned that her privacy was invaded, Van Alstyne later deposed Leonard, who admitted to breaking in to her personal email account after she left ELS.

Van Alstyne then filed a Stored Communications Act claim (“SCA”) and Virginia Computer Crimes Act claim (“VCCA”)in the Eastern District of Virginia against Leonard, requesting compensatory and punitive damages under the SCA for “actual damages.” The claim was then amended, twice, so that the Third Amended Complaint named ELS as a defendant, withdrew the VCCA claim, and withdrew any claim for actual damages, relying instead on punitive damages and the statutory minimum damages under the SCA.

The defendants’ moved for summary judgment, which was denied, arguing that the SCA did not provide for statutory damages absent a showing of actual damages. The jury then returned a verdict for Van Alstyne awarding compensatory and punitive damages against both Leonard and ELS, as well as attorney’s fees and costs.

This issue on appeal was whether the district court erred in permitting a statutory damages award without any proof of actual damages. The Court of Appeals held that the district court did err.

The Court compared the SCA to the Privacy Act. Both statutes had language that limited damages to the “actual damages suffered” by an aggrieved person. The SCA explicitly stated that each minimum statutory award of $1000 was for recovering actual damages. Van Alstyne interpreted the provision so a “person aggrieved” could recover under the statute. However, the Court noted that the aggrieved person language was limited by the actual damages language later in the statute.

Van Alstyne also argued that the violation was similar to common law trespass, which did not require actual damages. The Court quickly dismissed this idea because under Doe v. Chao, trespass does require “proof of some harm from which damages can be reasonably be assessed.” 540 U.S. 614, 621 (2004).

The defendants also claimed that Van Alstyne was required to prove actual damages in order to recover punitive damages and attorney’s fees. The Court stated that the SCA did not limit punitive damages to a showing of actual damages, but instead limited recovery to a showing of willful or intentional conduct. Since the jury found willful conduct on the part of Leonard, punitive damages were appropriate. The Court also concluded that attorney’s fees are allowed under the SCA for any “aggrieved person” so again, no actual damages were needed.

The Court vacated the district court’s decision and remanded the case to determine if in light of the loss of statutory damages, the punitive damages and attorney’s fees rewarded were appropriate.

Brett graduated on May 22, 2009.

Comments (1):

1. Reply

   maria cross said:
   August 12, 2011 at 3:16 AM

   Seems like many area have this problem .They invaded the employees’ privacy . Caues they are the boss.