The Ninth Circuit heard oral argument in Best Carpet Values, Inc. v. Google, LLC, yesterday. The plaintiffs below asserted trespass to chattels (among other things) based on alteration of a website display.
The district court framed trespass to chattels as follows:
Trespass to chattels lies where an intentional interference with the possession of personal property has caused injury. Intel Corp. v. Hamidi, 30 Cal. 4th 1342, 1350-51 (2003); see also Brodsky v. Apple Inc., 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 148808, at *8 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 30, 2019). “Dubbed by Prosser the `little brother of conversion,’ the tort of trespass to chattels allows recovery for interferences with possession of personal property `not sufficiently important to be classed as conversion, and so to compel the defendant to pay the full value of the thing with which he has interfered.'” Hamidi, 30 Cal. 4th at 1350(quoting Prosser & Keeton, Torts (5th ed. 1984) ยง 14, pp. 85-86). Under California law, “[i]n cases of interference with possession of personal property not amounting to conversion, `the owner has a cause of action for trespass or case [sic], and may recover only the actual damages suffered by reason of the impairment of the property or the loss of its use.'” In re iPhone Application Litig., 844 F. Supp. 2d 1040, 1069 (N.D. Cal. 2012)(quoting Hamidi, 30 Cal. 4th at 1351).
BEST CARPET VALUES, INC. v. GOOGLE LLC, No. 5: 20-cv-04700-EJD (N.D. Cal. Sept. 24, 2021) [Link].
You can watch yesterday’s oral argument at the Ninth Circuit here: