A recipient of unsolicited e-mails could not sue the sender under state law because such claims are preempted by federal anti-spam law, the 4th Circuit has ruled in affirming a summary judgment.

The defendant sent numerous e-mails advertising various travel offers to the plaintiff, a web site design firm located in Oklahoma. The plaintiff sued under the Controlling the Assault of Non- Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM) and an Oklahoma anti-spam statute that prohibits e-mails that misrepresent or fail to properly identify their point of origin.

The defendant argued that the CAN-SPAM Act preempted the plaintiff's state-law claims because the statute expressly provides that it "supersedes" state laws regulating commercial e-mail.

The plaintiff contended its claims fell within the CAN-SPAM Act's exception for any state law that "prohibits falsity or deception in any portion of a commercial electronic mail message or information attached thereto."

But the court decided that the exception only applied to "material" inaccuracies touching on fraud and, because the plaintiff alleged only minor, "immaterial" inaccuracies in the defendant's e- mails, the CAN-SPAM Act preempted the state-law claims.

"The exception allows states to prohibit 'falsity or deception' in commercial e-mail messages. Those terms are not defined in the statute. However, 'deception' requires more than bare error, and while 'falsity' can be defined as merely 'the character or quality of not conforming to the truth or facts,' it also can convey an element of tortiousness or wrongfulness, as in 'deceitfulness, untrustworthiness, faithlessness," the court said.

It further decided that the plaintiff could not establish that the defendant violated the CAN-SPAM Act's requirements concerning the accuracy of header information in commercial e-mails, finding "the e-mails at issue were chock full of methods to 'identify, locate, or respond to' the sender or to 'investigate [an] alleged violation' of the CAN-SPAM Act."

Omega World Travel, Inc. v. Mummagraphics, Inc. (Lawyers USA No. 9934632) U.S. Court of Appeals, 4th Circuit No. 05-2080. Nov. 17, 2006.