## Facts

- Intel operated an internal email system connected to the internet and permitted employee business use and limited personal use.
- Kourosh Kenneth Hamidi, a former Intel employee, formed an advocacy group for current and former Intel employees and sent bulk emails to employees’ “@intel.com” addresses over roughly 21 months.
- Hamidi sent six rounds of mass emails, at times reaching tens of thousands of Intel employees, criticizing Intel’s employment practices and directing employees to outside websites.
- Hamidi included an opt-out notice and removed recipients who requested removal.
- Hamidi bypassed no security barriers to send the emails; Intel’s system remained operational and was not physically damaged or functionally disrupted.
- Intel implemented blocking measures; Hamidi sometimes avoided the blocks by changing sending computers or addresses.
- Intel claimed harm primarily as lost productivity and the costs of efforts to block the emails, rather than injury to the computers or deprivation of system use.

## Issues

1. Whether unauthorized bulk emails sent through an employer’s email system constitute trespass to chattels when they neither damage the system nor impair its functioning.
2. Whether consequential economic effects (employee distraction and company blocking efforts) satisfy the injury element of trespass to chattels.
3. Whether injunctive relief may issue on a trespass-to-chattels theory without proof of likely irreparable injury to the chattel or the possessor’s interest in it.

## Decision

- The California Supreme Court reversed (4–3) and set aside the injunction.
- The court held Intel did not establish trespass to chattels because the emails caused no damage to Intel’s computer system and did not impair its functioning or deprive Intel of its use.
- The court rejected consequential economic harm (lost productivity and time spent blocking) as insufficient because it was not injury to Intel’s property interest in its computers.
- Without a cognizable trespass-to-chattels injury, Intel was not entitled to injunctive relief on that theory.

## Legal Principles

- Trespass to chattels requires actual injury to the chattel or impairment of the possessor’s interest (such as dispossession, functional interference, or damage).
- Electronic communications do not constitute trespass to chattels absent evidence that they damage the recipient computer system or impair its functioning.
- Consequential harms arising from the message content (such as distraction, annoyance, or productivity loss) are not injuries to the computer system for purposes of trespass to chattels.
- Injunctive relief for trespass to chattels depends on showing the elements of the tort, including injury to the property or the possessor’s interest in it.

## Conclusion

The court limited trespass to chattels in the email context to cases involving demonstrable harm to, or functional impairment of, the recipient computer system, and held that unauthorized bulk emails causing only consequential economic effects cannot support liability or an injunction under that tort.


Intel Corp. v. Hamidi, 30 Cal. 4th 1342 (Cal. 2003)