If there were such a contest, I think this case wins the “most absurd lawsuit of the day.”

In Kassis Management, Inc. v. Verizon New York, Inc., the plaintiff claimed damages in breach of contract and consumer fraud as a result of Verizon’s “promise” to move its phone service from one location to their new business location at no cost, and then later told plaintiff that it would only do so for an “excessive” fee.

Not surprisingly, when questioned under oath at a deposition, the plaintiff’s chief executive was “unable to quantify the incoming calls directed to plaintiff during non-business hours during [the relevant time period] nor was he able to identify any business opportunities that plaintiff lost due to missed phone calls.” (How did the plaintiff’s attorneys not know this before they actually went ahead and brought the lawsuit?)

The result of the lawsuit was equally unsurprising: the case was dismissed because, in the words of the court,

“Lost profits must be measured by reliable factors which go beyond mere speculation; While such profits need not be proven with mathematical precision, there needs to be more proof than what has been offered by plaintiff. See Locke v. Aston, 1AD3d 160, 161-2 [1st Dept 2003]. Much of the documentary evidence is not actually verifiable. Therefore, the court must dismiss this action based on the lack of reasonable certainty in calculating the injury to plaintiff.”

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As we wrote nearly one year ago in “E-mail Mistakes That Can Cost Your Small Business in Court,” there is no such thing as an innocuous e-mail. Not anymore.

In Grimaldi v. Guinn, the plaintiff sued the Pennsylvania-based defendants for breach of contract, business fraud, and under New York’s deceptive advertising statute, General Business Law § 349, because he handed over his vintage 1969 Camaro to the defendants to add a specialized manifold and carburetor assembly.

Months later, his Camaro, which was valued at over $100,000 beforehand, was returned to him in bags.

In response to the plaintiff’s lawsuit, the defendants moved to dismiss on the grounds that the New York court lacked personal jurisdiction over them because they had no meaningful contacts with New York State. In affirming the trial court’s denial of the defendants’ motion, New York’s Appellate Division, Second Department reiterated the standard for conferring jurisdiction on a foreign (i.e., non-New York-based) defendant based on contacts that were made via the internet:

“The purposeful creation of a continuing relationship has been a contributing factor in finding sufficient contacts to justify the exercise of long-arm jurisdiction … If the foreign company maintains an informational Web site accessible to the general public but which cannot be used for purchasing services or goods, then most courts would find it unreasonable to assert personal jurisdiction over that company …

“However, passive Web sites, when combined with other business activity, may provide a reasonable basis for the assertion of personal jurisdiction … If a Web site provides information, permits access to e-mail communication, describes the goods or services offered, downloads a printed order form, or allows online sales with the use of a credit card, and sales are, in fact, made … then the assertion of personal jurisdiction may be reasonable.”

From the litany of cases from other jurisdictions cited by this opinion, it seems rather clear that this standard is equally applicable in other states as well. Therefore, when establishing your web presence and/or contacts with prospective clients or customers, it is critical that you remain cognizant of the jurisdictional implications of your communications.

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After on-line retail giant Amazon remotely deleted electronic copies of George Orwell’s “1984″  that they had previously sold to consumers, who then downloaded the eBooks onto Amazon’s Kindles,  two of those users have now brought a consumer class action complaint against on-line retail giant Amazon, claiming that Amazon’s acts violated a series of state and federal laws.

Leaving aside, for the moment, the delicious irony inherent in this particular story (of all books for Amazon to remotely access and delete, they had to pick “1984″?) the lawsuit does raise several fascinating legal issues. First, the lawsuit claims that by remotely deleting the eBooks after they had sold the eBooks to consumers, Amazon was not only guilty of breach of contract, but had contravened their own promotional advertising literature that was aimed at the public at large, and therefore, should be held liable for violating state consumer protection laws for engaging in deceptive advertising. (Under New York law, these statutes are codified at General Business Law sections 349 and 350). More specifically, the plaintiffs allege that Amazon’s own terms provide that consumers may keep – on a permanent basis – any eBooks that they pay for and download from Amazon.

Additionally, the plaintiffs to this lawsuit raised a compelling logical argument: since Amazon would certainly be barred from entering the purchasers’ homes and retrieving a hard copy of a book that Amazon had previously shipped to them, Amazon was likewise legally barred from deleting electronic copies of the books that were purchased for download.  Therefore, according to the complaint, Amazon’s actions are tantamount to an unlawful taking, or theft, of the purchasers’ private property (in legal terms commonly referred to as trespass and/or conversion).

Finally, the plaintiffs assert that Amazon’s actions constitute an invasion of their computer privacy rights, and therefore are liable to plaintiffs and all those who suffered a similar fate at Amazon’s hands, for violating the relatively new Computer Fraud & Abuse Act.

To their credit, Amazon has openly and readily acknowledged its mistake, stating that due to licensing issues, it should not have made available for sale these particular eBooks. Nevertheless, given the overwhelmingly negative publicity that Amazon is receiving from this story (which, at least in the short term, is likely to have a signficant chilling effect on Kindle sales), their mea culpa was obviously too little and too late to avert a class action lawsuit, and perhaps further damage to the reputation and sales of their prized product, the Kindle.

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