LVRC Holdings LLC v. Brekka

LVRC Holdings v. Brekka 581 F.3d 1127, 1135 (9th Cir.2009)
Court	United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Full case name	LVRC HOLDINGS LLC v. Christopher BREKKA; Employee Business Solutions Inc.; Carolyn Quain; Stuart Smith; Brad Greenstein; Frank Szabo.
Decided	September 15, 2009
Citation(s)	LVRC Holdings v. Brekka, 581 F.3d 1127 (2009).,
Case history
Prior action(s)	Summary judgment for defendant, LVRC Holdings, LLC, v. Brekka, No. 2:05-CV-01026-KJD-GWF, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 73662, 2007 WL 2891565 (D. Nev. Sept. 28, 2007).
Court membership
Judge(s) sitting	M. Margaret McKeown, Sandra Segal Ikuta, and James V. Selna
Case opinions
The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants holding that "authorisation" was not dependent on employees' motives or loyalty. The Court of Appeals affirms.
Keywords
Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA)

LVRC Holdings v. Brekka 581 F.3d 1127, 1135 (9th Cir. 2009) is a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Decision that deals with the scope of the concept of "authorization" in the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The major finding of this case is that even if an employee accesses a computer for an improper purpose, such as one that violates the duty of loyalty to their employer, the employee remains authorized to access the computer until the employer revokes the employee's access. The findings of this case were upheld by another Ninth Circuit decision in United States v. Nosal, 676 F.3d 854 (9th Cir.2012) (en banc) and are the current law in this circuit.

This case is noteworthy because the court differentiated itself from the Seventh's Circuit interpretation of "authorization" by assessing whether the employer made the computer system available to the employee during the employee's access, instead of examining the subjective intent the employee had when accessing the system. Since this decision limited the scope of when an employee could access a computer "without authorization" than the Seventh Circuit did in a similar case, this case defined a circuit split of authority on the scope of the term "authorization." This issue could be settled by the Supreme Court in the future. Van Buren v. United States is a pending United States Supreme Court case dealing with the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and its definition of "exceeds authorized access" in relation to one intentionally accessing a computer system they have authorization to access.