An appeals court in California recently upheld the entry of an injunction against a college professor living in Washington state based (in part) on [allegedly] harassive emails sent by her to a bioengineering professor in California (Doebler II v. Douglas, 2009 Cal. App. Unpub. LEXIS 3176). 

[As relayed by the court] the facts were that plaintiff (the CA professor) and defendant (the WA professor) dated in high school in 1983.  They briefly considered rekindling their relationship (although the plaintiff was now married and living in California).  Plaintiff decided he was not interested, but defendant pressed on, sending plaintiff a slew of emails and at one point waiting outside a lecture hall (in the parking lot) where plaintiff was finishing up a lecture.  On one day, plaintiff reportedly received "14 e-mails from [defendant] using multiple email accounts in an attempt to circumvent [plaintiff's] spam filter."  Based on this (and other evidence) the court affirms entry of an injunction prohibiting defendant "from harassing and contacting [plaintiff] for a period of three years." 

I'm trying to figure out if there's anything remarkable about this case.  Last year a New York appeals court held that repeated MySpace messages did not amount to harassment (previous post; cNet ("Lovestruck MySpace teen not guilty of harassment, court says")).  I guess the facts are a bit different here, and defendant exhibited some behavior (including waiting in the parking lot while plaintiff finished up his lecture and contacting the plaintiff's wife) which seems less than balanced.  On the other hand, the trial court was clearly perturbed by defendant's repeated emails:  "Without question the order is appropriate in my mind given the length of time this nonsense has occurred and the number of harassing e-mails.  They can only be called harassing e-mails.  There's a course of conduct that must come to an end." 

Update:  see comments from what looks like one of the parties below.