"Fade into nightmare," reads the litigation webpage of Peter Hall, an independent filmmaker who stars as the plaintiff in the Second Circuit's Hall v. Earthlink. It's an appropriate cinematic metaphor, as the pages of the Judge Pooler's decision evoke Kafkaesque images of a struggling artist thwarted by a cold, calculating technology organization.

The basic plot runs like this: After working five years to complete his first film, Delinquent, Peter Hall is making final preparations for its nationwide premiere. He signs up for and uses an Earthlink email account, "lot99@earthlink.net," as a main avenue of marketing communications for the project. By chance, Earthlink accidentally identifies lot99 as a spammer on the Net Abuse Report and terminates Hall's account. A week later, with the assistance of Wired News, Earthlink retracts its spammer allegations, but for some reason, Hall's Earthlink email account is not reactivated.

Though the lot99 account is terminated, it continues to receive queries about the film. Not only is the account inaccessible by Hall, but it does not return undelivered mail to people who try to contact lot99. The ISP testifies that, "at the time relevant to this action, it did not have the ability to bounce email back to senders after the termination of an account." The explanation seems dubious, even by 1997 standards.

As a result of this series of unfortunate events, Hall cannot read, respond to or identify requests for information about the premiere of Delinquent -- a big deal when trying to promote an independent film. Over an 11 month period, lot99 receives 591 emails, all of which are eventually forwarded to Hall in July 1998, almost a year after the premiere.

On July 31, 1998, Hall files this complaint alleging seven counts against Earthlink, most notably breach of contract and an Electronic Communications Privacy Act ("EPCA") violation for wrongful interception of email.

At trial in the Southern District of New York, Earthlink is found not liable on the EPCA claim due to an "ordinary course of business" exception. Basically, Hall cannot provide evidence that the ISP acted outside the ordinary course of business when it continued to receive mail sent to the lot99 address. Thus, no "interception" in violation the statute.

The remaining claims are dismissed on summary judgment, primarily because there is no special contractual relationship between the parties, and because the consequential damages to Delinquent's success are not compensable. On appeal, the Second Circuit affirms the District Court's decision. [Curtain]

Finding a positive moral in Hall v. Earthlink is difficult. There's no deus ex machina to save the day -- it was the email snafu from Hell. Perhaps this litigation will bestow some beneficial cult status on Delinquent. Netflix doesn't carry the title yet, but it is available here. Better yet, maybe this experience will inspire a good movie about a movie.

Hall's lawyers: Andrew Grosso and William M. Palmer.

Earthlink's lawyers: John Bradham, Duval & Stachenfeld LLP.