Wiretapping

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Barry Epstein v. Paula Epstein, et al

Case No.: 15-2076

Officials: POSNER, MANION, AND SYKES, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Wiretapping

Barry Epstein sued his estranged wife, Paula, alleging that she violated the federal Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Act by intercepting his emails. The action arises from the couple’s acrimonious divorce. Paula accused Barry of serial infidelity, so in discovery Barry asked her for all documents related to that accusation. Paula complied and produced copies of incriminating

emails between Barry and several other women. Her discovery response spawned this satellite litigation (the divorce action is still pending). Barry alleges that Paula violated the Wiretap Act by surreptitiously placing an auto-forwarding “rule” on his email accounts that automatically forwarded the messages on his email client to her. He also claims that Paula’s divorce lawyer violated the Act by “disclosing” the intercepted emails in response to his discovery request. The district judge dismissed the suit on the pleadings. We affirm in part and reverse in part. The complaint doesn’t state a Wiretap Act claim against Paula’s lawyer. The lawyer can’t be liable for disclosing Barry’s own emails to him in response to his own discovery request. The allegations against Paula, on the other hand, technically fall within the language of the Act, though Congress probably didn’t anticipate its use as a tactical weapon in a divorce proceeding.

Affirm in part

Reversed in part

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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.