A lawsuit charging Sprint with sending illegal, unsolicited e-mail appears to be turning into a test case for how much evidence a company can recover when defending against allegations of wrongful spamming.
The class-action suit, Terry Gillman v. Sprint Communications, claims that the phone company violated a recently enacted Utah statute that places restrictions on senders of unsolicited e-mail.
The suit seeks damages of $10 per day for each unwanted e-mail the Utah plaintiffs received from Sprint (FON), along with payment of court costs.
Under Utah law, spammers can be forced to pay up to $10 for each unsolicited e-mail they send or $25,000 for each day they continue to spam.
Plaintiffs' lawyers said the case was modeled after a lawsuit filed nearly four years ago by Washington's state attorney general against a notorious spammer.
The new suit took an unusual twist in early July, however, when Sprint filed a motion requesting it be provided with the lead plaintiff's hard drive for the discovery phase of the case.
Sprint spokesman Mark Bonavia declined to comment on the suit, saying it is company policy not to discuss pending litigation.
In a motion filed in Utah's 3rd District Court in Salt Lake City, however, the phone company rejected the charges, adding that it "intends to discontinue the allegedly actionable behavior."
Sprint also requested Gillman, the lead plaintiff in the suit, provide all electronic and hard copies of the allegedly inappropriate e-mail.
"This will permit Sprint to better investigate and prevent such alleged violations and will also prevent plaintiff from artificially increasing his damages by refusing to provide the basic information supporting his claim," the motion states.
Denver Snuffer, the attorney for the plaintiffs, characterized the request for the hard drive as an intimidation tactic. He said demands for physical evidence such as computer hard drives are not feasible in the context of a spam class-action lawsuit.
"There are an estimated 1.4 million Internet users in Utah who may have received Sprint spam, and to ask that many people to literally remove and deliver their hard drives to Sprint is ridiculous," he said.
Sprint's motion contained a request only for Gillman's hard drive. As of yet, no equipment has been turned over.
Judge Denise Lindberg of 3rd District Court, State of Utah ordered instead that both Sprint and the plaintiffs not delete any electronic records that may be pertinent in the case, Snuffer said.
The lawsuit is intended to represent all Utah residents who received the unwanted e-mail from Sprint after the state's anti-spam statute took effect on May 7. Currently, more than half of U.S. states have anti-spam statutes in place, though specific restrictions on commercial e-mail vary.
Under Utah's law, companies aren't prohibited from sending unsolicited e-mail. However, senders must clearly state their legal name and address, include the letters "ADV:" in the subject line, and provide a convenient way for the recipient to opt out of getting further messages.
Snuffer said the Sprint messages did not comply with these rules.
