Violation of Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

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7^TH Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Fidlar Technologies v. LPS Real Estate Data Solutions

Case No.: 15-1830

Officials: FLAUM, MANION, and ROVNER, Circuit Judges.

Practice Area: Violation of Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

Company download of county land records was not fraudulent

“None of the circumstantial evidence, including the testimony of LPS employees, the agreements governing LPS’s access to county records, and the Laredo technology itself, undermines LPS’s claim that it believed it could permissibly download records through its web-harvester without paying print fees. First, LPS presented testimony from its employees indicating that they believed that although printing a record resulted in a fee, downloading a record did not. For example, LPS’s former Senior Vice President Erick Marroquin stated that he believed that LPS was “entitled to download images from the Laredo program without incurring a print charge.” LPS also offered evidence that it did not use a webharvester to avoid print fees. The employee who oversaw development of the web-harvester, John McCabe, testified that in designing the web-harvester, “no part of [the process] was to avoid a print fee” and that the purpose was “[e]fficiency, speed.””

Affirmed

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.