United States tort law Real Estate Interference 

 

Trespass to chattels is defined directly in US Tort law as "intentionally… dispossessing another of the chattel, or using or intermeddling with a chattel in the possession of another.” A person is liable to the owner of the chattel if he or she "dispossesses the other of the chattel, or (b) the chattel is impaired as to its condition, quality, or value, or (c) the possessor is deprived of the use of the chattel for a substantial time, or (d) bodily harm is caused to the possessor, or harm is caused to some person or thing in which the possessor has a legally protected interest."  These terms are set forth by the Restatement of Torts: Second edition by the American Law Association.

 

 

In modern times, the tort of Trespass to Chattels is often levied against Internet advertisers and email spammers for spyware and malware usage. In these litigation's, the Trojan's and worms embedded into mass email clients have been found to cause harm to or inhibit use of one's legal property (i.e. personal computer). Loss of stored information from computer malfunction is also considered a liability, as immaterial assets of intellectual property are considered private property under law, so long as there is record of their existence. 

 

 

Trespass of chattels also extends into cyberspace litigation beyond instances of malware and email floods.  The practice of screen-scraping has been ruled as Trespass to chattels in the case of eBay v. Bidder's Edge. Screen-scraping is the practice of data harvesting from another entities legally owned website for one's own commercial use. 

 

 

It is illegal to display information from a website on another website without following the disclosure or reproduction agreement stipulated on the original website. As many websites serve their owner's commercial interests, interference with a websites content, including unauthorized reproduction, is seen as a commercial liability, and thus may be charged as Trespass to chattels.

 

 

 

Recent litigation in cyberspace has attempted to make greater use of the once-antiquated trespass to chattels tort, in attempts by hotel or airline sites to sue discount travel sites such as Priceline and Travelocity for data harvesting. Bundled travel sites such as Priceline and Travelocity harvest and reproduce the largest amount of data from individual hotel registries and airline/mass transit websites. 

 

 

Hotels have claimed damages on grounds that they lose money on processing fees when all transactions are done through larger bundled travel sites.  Such litigation, albeit very active, has yet to result in judgment for the plaintiffs.

After Lawful entry to a property, a licensee may act outside of his or her license by performing actions not stipulated within the agreement. For example, in the case of Bond v Kelly (1873), the defendant was found to have committed Tort Trespass to Land when having acted outside his work order.  

The defendant was commissioned to deforest a section of land on the plaintiff’s property, and although was lawfully licensed to enter the property, he’d cut down more trees for lumber than ordered, and thus was guilty of Tort trespass, despite lawfully entering the property.

Law enforcement personnel are subject to unlawful entry charges when entering a property without either a search warrant or witnessing a party for whom there is an outstanding warrant at the property. 

There is no burden of proof regarding damages upon the plaintiff in tort trespassing cases. The defendant need not cause damage to the land, simply be fount to have intentionally entered the land without specific license. Accidentally entering land has been set by precedent to not constitute unlawful entry. 

For example, if a defendant trips and falls onto a property, even though he knows it is not his own property, he is not guilty of trespass so long as he leaves the property within a reasonable amount of time.  The basis of intent, again, remains the act of entering the property itself.  Knowledge of the property’s legal owner, or cases of mistaken ownership or mistaken license are not valid areas of concern in tort Trespass of Land litigation.