Also known as: intentional intermeddling · intermeddling
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
An intentional interference with another's possessory interest in a chattel by using or handling the chattel without permission. The interference must be purposeful and result in some impairment to the owner's use or control.
Ten-year-old Mia rode her scooter into Rico's unfenced auto shop bay after hours. She intentionally manipulated the hydraulic lift controls without permission. Mia's purposeful intermeddling with the equipment impaired Rico's possessory control over the machinery.
Trevor retrieved Roger's rolling suitcase from behind the counter without permission. He selected several designer outfits and dressed mannequins for a two-day store promotion. Trevor's deliberate handling and commercial use of the garments constituted intentional intermeddling with Roger's chattels even though the items were later returned.
Ethan directed Luke to wheel Brock's locked bicycle from the public rack into a fenced maintenance area. Brock returned from his trip to find the bicycle inaccessible for eight hours. The intentional relocation without Brock's consent amounted to intermeddling that deprived him of use during that period.
On September 27, 1964, at approximately 4:30 p.m., at the intersection of Blue Ridge Road and Chenango Avenue in Sacramento County, defendant David Legg operated his motor vehicle in such a manner that it struck and killed two-year-old Erin Lee Dillon. Plaintiff Cheryl Dillon, the mother of the deceased child, was a pedestrian at or near the intersection in close proximity to the accident and actually witnessed the impact and death of her daughter. Plaintiff Robert Dillon, the minor brother of the deceased, was also a pedestrian in close proximity to the accident and witnessed the impact and death of his sister. The complaint set forth three separate counts seeking recovery for the resulting injuries. In the first count, Cheryl Dillon alleged that as a direct and proximate result of the defendant's negligence she suffered fright, shock, and mental anguish and sustained physical injuries along with great emotional and physical pain and suffering. The second count alleged that Robert Dillon suffered great emotional and physical pain and suffering as a direct and proximate result of witnessing the accident. The third count alleged that Clyde Dillon, the father of the deceased minor, sustained a loss of the affection, society, and companionship of his daughter and incurred funeral and burial expenses. Defendant demurred to the complaint on the ground that it failed to state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action. The trial court sustained the demurrers without leave to amend and entered a judgment of dismissal in favor of the defendant. Plaintiffs appealed from that judgment to the Supreme Court of California. In related proceedings, the trial court granted a motion for judgment on the pleadings against the mother's cause of action but denied a similar motion as to the sister's cause of action, and later denied a motion for summary judgment on the sister's claim. The case thus presented claims by a mother who was not within the zone of danger and by a sibling who may have been within it.
View caseCyber Promotions sent thousands of unsolicited messages to CompuServe subscribers. The volume of incoming mail consumed server resources and forced CompuServe to expend staff time blocking the traffic. The deliberate flooding of the system constituted intentional intermeddling with CompuServe's chattel.
CompuServe Incorporated operates one of the major national commercial online computer services through a proprietary nationwide computer network that provides subscribers with access to its content and a link to the Internet for exchanging electronic mail. Defendants Cyber Promotions, Inc. and its president Sanford Wallace are in the business of sending unsolicited e-mail advertisements on behalf of themselves and their clients to hundreds of thousands of Internet users, many of whom are CompuServe subscribers. Over the past several months, CompuServe received many complaints from subscribers threatening to discontinue their subscriptions unless the company prohibited electronic mass mailers from using its equipment. In or around October 1995, CompuServe employee Jon Schmidt specifically told Sanford Wallace that he was prohibited from using CompuServe's equipment to send junk e-mail messages. CompuServe later posted an online policy statement declaring that it does not permit its facilities to be used by unauthorized parties to process and store unsolicited e-mail. Despite the notification, defendants sent an increasing volume of e-mail solicitations to CompuServe subscribers. CompuServe attempted to block the messages with software programs, but defendants modified their equipment and messages to circumvent the screening by falsifying the point-of-origin information in the headers, removing sender information, and configuring their servers to conceal their true domain name. CompuServe submitted affidavits from software developer Michael Mangino on the burden to its equipment, customer service manager Patrick Hole on receiving approximately 9,970 e-mail complaints in November 1996, and others documenting the evasion tactics. On October 24, 1996, the court issued a temporary restraining order, and following a hearing on December 15, 1996, the court considered CompuServe's application for a preliminary injunction to extend the order and enjoin defendants from sending any unsolicited advertisements to CompuServe subscribers.
View caseBidder's Edge deployed automated crawlers that repeatedly accessed eBay's listing servers to collect auction data. The repeated queries imposed a measurable load on eBay's systems and deprived eBay of exclusive control over server capacity. The systematic scraping amounted to intentional intermeddling with eBay's chattels.
eBay, Inc. operates an Internet-based person-to-person trading site that allows sellers to list items for auction and buyers to search listings and place bids directly with sellers. The site has over 7 million registered users, adds more than 400,000 new items daily, receives 10 million searches per day, and processes 600 bids per minute across nearly 3 million items. Users register by clicking an “I Accept” button on a seven-page User Agreement that prohibits robots, spiders, or other automated devices from monitoring or copying web pages without prior written permission. Bidder’s Edge, Inc., a 22-employee company founded in 1997, operates an auction aggregation site that compiles data from more than one hundred auction sites into its own database containing over five million items. When a user searches on the BE site, the site queries its database rather than the original host sites. Approximately 69 percent of the items in BE’s database come from eBay auctions, and BE estimates it would lose one-third of its users if it stopped covering eBay. In early 1998 eBay permitted BE to include Beanie Babies and Furbies listings. In April 1999 eBay verbally approved BE crawling the site for a 90-day period while the parties negotiated a licensing agreement, but they failed to reach terms. After BE briefly stopped posting eBay listings in late August or early September 1999 and then resumed in November, eBay sent a November 9 letter demanding that BE cease access, alleging trespass, and offering a license. eBay then blocked 169 IP addresses it believed BE was using; BE evaded the blocks by routing queries through proxy servers. BE sent eBay’s systems between 80,000 and 100,000 requests per day, accounting for 0.70 to 1.53 percent of eBay’s requests and data transfer during October and November 1999. eBay calculated alleged damages of $45,323 to $61,804 over ten months but did not identify specific incremental costs caused by BE. The motion for a preliminary injunction was heard on April 14, 2000.
View caseHarm includes any impairment to the owner's ability to use or control the chattel, such as removal of identifying labels that forces recalibration or loss of exclusive use for a meaningful period. Physical damage is not required.
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Temporary use can support liability when it deprives the owner of control for a substantial period or alters the chattel's condition in a way that impairs utility, even if the item is returned undamaged.
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A child's youth supports liability when it prevents the child from discovering the condition or realizing the risk of intermeddling with it or entering the dangerous area created by an artificial condition on land.
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Yes. The defendant must act with purpose to affect the chattel or with substantial certainty that the interference will occur, as shown by deliberate removal, handling, or use without permission.
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…v. Ham (1955) 44 Cal.2d 772 [285 P.2d 269], we posited liability on the owner of a bulldozer because of a "foreseeable risk of intermeddling" (p. 776), noting especially the great danger the bulldozer created and the special temptation it presented to third parties. Similarly, in Hergenrether v. East, supra, 61 Cal.2d 440, we…