Aitken v. Communs. Workers of Am.

Aitken v. Communs. Workers of Am.

Opinion

 [*655]  MEMORANDUM OPINION

This federal question action grows out of defendants' alleged misappropriation of the identities of certain plaintiffs -- twelve managers at Verizon Business Network Services ("Verizon") -- for the purpose of sending pro-union, anti-Verizon emails to  [*656]  Verizon employees under the managers' names. Defendants Harry Arnold and Pam Tronsor, acting as agents of defendant Communications Workers of America ("CWA"), allegedly created Yahoo email addresses using the names of nineteen Verizon managers, including twelve plaintiffs, and then used those email addresses to send unsolicited emails to numerous Verizon employees. These emails  [**2] falsely appeared to originate from the Verizon managers and disparaged Verizon while touting the benefits of unionization with CWA. Based on these allegations, twelve of the nineteen aggrieved Verizon managers, joined by Verizon and MCI Communications Services, Inc., filed this action alleging the following seven claims: (i) violation of the CAN-SPAM Act, 15 U.S.C. § 7704, (ii) false endorsement, in violation of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1125, (iii) a state claim for misappropriation of the individual plaintiffs' names, (iv) a state claim for false light invasion of privacy, ¹ (v) a state claim for defamation, (vi) a state claim for violation of Virginia's anti-spam statute, 18 Va. Code § 18.2-152.3:1, and (vii) a state claim for common law conspiracy. The CAN-SPAM Act claim is asserted only on behalf of plaintiff Verizon. The common law conspiracy claim and the Virginia Anti-Spam Act claim are asserted on behalf of all plaintiffs. The remaining claims are asserted only on behalf of the individual plaintiffs. All claims are asserted against all three defendants.

Plaintiffs seek injunctive relief, compensatory and punitive damages in an unspecified amount, and costs and fees. Defendant CWA moved to dismiss the two federal claims pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6), Fed. R. Civ. P., and further urged the Court to decline supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining state law claims. Defendants Arnold and Tronsor joined CWA's motion, and also moved to dismiss the claims against them pursuant to Rule 12(b)(2), Fed. R. Civ. P., for lack of personal jurisdiction.

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