Jennings v. Jennings

After finding a card for flowers for another woman in her husband’s car, Petitioner Gail Jennings confronted him. Respondent M. Lee Jennings confessed he had fallen in love with someone else, and although he refused to divulge her name, he admitted the two had been corresponding via e-mail for some time. Gail confided this situation to her daughter-in-law, Petitioner Holly Broome. Broome had previously worked for Jennings and knew he maintained a personal Yahoo! e-mail account. She accessed his account by guessing the correct answers to his security questions and read the e-mails exchanged between Jennings and his paramour. Broome then printed out copies of the incriminating e-mails and gave them to Thomas Neal, Gail’s attorney in the divorce proceedings, and Brenda Cooke, a private investigator Gail hired. Broome was sued civilly for hacking Lee Jennings' Yahoo! e-mail account. The circuit court granted summary judgment in favor of Broome on all claims, including violation of the federal Stored Communications Act (SCA). The court of appeals reversed, finding that the e-mails she obtained from hacking Jennings' account were in electronic storage and thus covered by the SCA. The Supreme Court disagreed and reversed. After opening them, Jennings left the single copies of his e-mails on the Yahoo! server and apparently did not download them or save another copy of them in any other location. The Court therefore declined to hold that retaining an opened e-mail constitutes "storing it for backup protection" under the Act. "We emphasize that although we reject the contention that Broome's actions [gave] rise to a claim under the SCA, this should in no way be read as condoning her behavior. Instead, we only hold that she is not liable under the SCA because the e-mails in question do not meet the definition of 'electronic storage' under the Act." View "Jennings v. Jennings" on Justia Law