In Clare v. Clare, (9th Cir. 2020) 2020 DAR ___, the Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit held that the Stored Communications Act (18 USC 2701, 2707 creates a private right of action against a person who intentionally accesses, without authorization, an electronic communication system, thereby obtaining an electronic communication in the system’s electronic storage. For this purpose, electronic storage includes storage by the system for the purpose of backup. This decision holds that a wife raised triable issues, barring summary judgment on her claim against her former husband for accessing copies of her private emails that were stored by her law firm employer on a separate server for backup purposes. It also holds that the district court erred in excluding a declaration wife submitted in opposition to the summary judgment. While the declarant didn’t establish his systems/IT expertise, none was needed to state his personal knowledge of how the law firm stored its email on the server that was in the declarant’s possession.