Justia U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(5)(A) prohibits intentionally damaging a computer system when there was no permission to engage in that particular act of damage. The Fifth Circuit affirmed defendant's conviction of knowingly causing the transmission of a program, information, code, or command, and as a result of such conduct, intentionally causing damage without authorization, to a protected computer, in violation of section 1030(a)(5)(A). In this case, defendant was the Information Technology Operations Manager for ClickMotive, a software webpage hosting company. Upset that a coworker had been terminated, defendant sabotaged the company's electronic system by deleting files, disabling backup operations, diverting emails, and preventing remote access to the company's network. The court held that defendant lacked permission to inflict the damage he caused and sufficient evidence supported defendant's conviction. Finally, the court held that the statute was not unconstitutionally vague. View "United States v. Thomas" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, BWP Media and National Photo Group, filed suit against T&S, an internet service provider, for direct and secondary infringement. Plaintiffs alleged that T&S hosted an internet forum on which third-party users posted images that infringed copyrights owned by plaintiffs. The district court granted summary judgment for T&S. The court adopted the volitional-conduct requirement in direct-copyright infringement cases, and found that BWP did not contend that T&S did, in fact, engage in such conduct. In this case, the court explained that T&S hosts the forum on which infringing content was posted, but its connection to the infringement ends there. Rather, the users posted the infringing content. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "BWP Media USA, Inc. v. T & S Software Associates, Inc." on Justia Law

Mississippi's Attorney General, James M. Hood III, appealed the district court's grant of a preliminary injunction prohibiting Hood from enforcing an administrative subpoena or bringing any civil or criminal action against Google "for making accessible third-party content to internet users." The court concluded that the district court erred in granting injunctive relief because neither the issuance of the non-self-executing administrative subpoena nor the possibility of some future enforcement action created an imminent threat of irreparable injury ripe for adjudication. The court noted that it expressed no opinion on the reasonableness of the subpoena or on whether the conduct discussed in the parties’ briefs could be held actionable consistent with federal law. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded. View "Google, Inc. v. Hood" on Justia Law

BCN filed suit against Catalina and three of its individual officers or employees, alleging deceptive trade practices, trademark violations, and related fraud and tort claims. BCN's claims stemmed from defendants' creation of CouponNetwork.com, a website and business "remarkably similar" to BCN's existing business, BrandCouponNetwork.com. The court vacated the district court's judgment to the extent that it dismissed BCN's claims under Rule 12(b)(6) as time barred because the district court erred in considering evidence outside the pleadings and a genuine issue of material fact appeared to exist regarding the timeliness of BCN's claims which would preclude summary judgment. The court affirmed the district court's dismissal of the individual defendants where BCN failed to preserve its claims where BCN did not present it to the district court and BCN's claims were conclusional. The court remanded for further proceedings. View "Brand Coupon Network, L.L.C. v. Catalina Marketing Corp., et al." on Justia Law

These consolidated appeals arose from the district court's appointment of a receiver of Jeffrey Baron's personal property and entities he owned or controlled. Barron and Munish Krishan formed a joint venture involving the ownership and sale of internet domain names. Disputes arose between the venturers, resulting in at least seven lawsuits. The district court subsequently sought to stop Baron's practice of regularly firing one lawyer and hiring a new one. Baron appealed the receivership order and almost every order entered by the district court thereafter. The court reversed and remanded, holding that the appointment of the receiver was an abuse of discretion. Numerous motions and a writ of mandamus to overturn the bankruptcy court's striking of notices of appeal to the district court were also before the court. Most were denied as moot and the court addressed the remaining motions that were relevant. View "Netsphere Inc., et al v. Baron" on Justia Law

Defendant, a technology company that sold data centers, appealed the district court's judgment on a jury verdict in favor of plaintiff, a company that purchased defendant's fiber management systems and intelligent fiber systems, in plaintiff's suit for breach of contract and fraudulent inducement. At issue was whether the district court erred in denying its motion for judgment as a matter of law. The court held that because plaintiff failed to present sufficient evidence that defendant had no intent to perform under the "best efforts" provision of the contract and failed to present any evidence of damages on its other claim, the judgment of the district court was reversed and remanded to the district court to enter judgment in favor of defendant. Accordingly, the court did not reach the other issues raised by defendant on appeal.