School of Visual Arts v. Diane Kuprewicz, 771 N.Y.S.2d 804 (2003), is a New York Supreme Court case in which it was held that sending and/or directing "large volumes of unsolicited job applications and pornographic e-mails" by defendant to plaintiff if it depletes hard disk space, drains processing power, and negatively impacts other system resources of the plaintiff is sufficient to establish "a cause of action for trespass to chattels.

"[1] Plaintiffs also claimed that Kuprewicz had sent "a similar job listing for Pearlberg's position" to official email of SVA's human resources in a format that resembled its posting at monster.com.

[1] Plaintiff's complaint enumerated six causes of action for "false designation of origin under the Lanham Act, defamation and trade libel, violation of [New York] Civil Rights Law §§ 50[2] - 51,[3] trespass to chattels and intentional interference with prospective economic advantage.

"[1] Then the court must decide whether "assuming truth of the facts alleged, the complaint states the elements of a legally cognizable cause of action.

"[1] Consequently, if it finds the allegations as "merely conclusory" and without factual grounds, the court can dismiss the complaint due to its failure "to state a cause of action.

[4] Additionally, plaintiff must show that defendant have acted "with the intention of interfering with the property or with knowledge that such interference is substantially certain to result.

"[10] In conducting such an assessment, " the words must be given a fair reading and must be construed in the context of the entire statements as a whole tested against the understanding of the average reader.

"[1] If the result shows that the words in question are not "reasonably susceptible of a defamatory meaning, they are not actionable and cannot be made so by a strained or artificial construction".

"[1] Nevertheless, as there was not any "false matter derogatory statement to SVA's business" in those job listings, the court concluded that trade libel as a "cause of action must also be dismissed.

"[1] Emphasizing the language of act, the court maintained that "SVA must prove that the false designation was used "in commerce" and "in connection with...goods or services" (15 U.S.C.

"[1] Therefore, the court concluded that even "accepting all of SVA's factual allegations as true, the complaint fail[ed] to state a cause of action" for either claims, i.e. false designation of origin or dilution, "under the Lanham act.

"[1] Dismissing SVA's claim due to lack of a plausible cause of action, the court maintained that "an essential element of [such] tort is that the plaintiff would have consummated a contract with another person but for the interference of the defendant.

Yet, it denied Kuprewicz's "cross-motion to dismiss the complaint" regarding plaintiff's "claim for common law trespass to chattels.