Random Thoughts to End the Year

Posted on December 31, 2009 by Patrick Smith

It seems common sense that a lawyer or witness would not answer a ringing cell phone in the middle of a court proceeding, but it happens enough that judges now have to have rules about it.

Molly DiBianca at Delaware Employment Law Blog takes on the entitlement mentality of some  employees who think they should be allowed to do personal business on company time and have complete privacy over personal e-mails sent on the company Blackberry. 

For a low cost perk that  will make your employees happy in 2010, HR Daily advisor recommends a flexible scheduling program. 

Guess who said it:

I always figured that I would [eventually practice]. But it was midway through law school when I thought I wanted to do something different before practicing. I wanted to try something new because I didn’t want to have any regrets.

Answer: former Texas Tech football coach Mike Leach, J.D., in an interview with "BItter Lawyer", on why he went into coaching instead of law practice.   Leach's lawyer has apparently promised to file a lawsuit against the University "soon" over his termination. 

Daniel Schwartz of Connecticut Employment Law Blog notes the difficulty of accurately predicting what will happen in the year ahead; he does go out on a limb with this one though: "We're not making contact with aliens."  Some days I'm not so sure.   

Speaking of predictions (and football), here's a couple:  Iowa State 20, Minnesota 14 in the Insight Bowl.  In the Orange Bowl, Iowa 24, Georgia Tech 21.  Go Cyclones and Hawks!

Happy New Year--see you in 2010!

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Are Social Networking Sites Private?

Posted on April 23, 2009 by Patrick Smith

Chances are your employees have sites on Facebook, MySpace, or some other online social networking site.   It is not uncommon for these employees to post statements or photographs on those sites that are derogatory of their boss, their workplace, or their colleagues.  Sometimes people post statements or explicit photographs that embarrass themselves, and by extension, you, as their employer.    Is an employer entitled to terminate an employee for a Facebook posting?  After all, they might say, it was done on my own time, and accessible only to my social networking "friends".

As reported by Anthony Zaller, a recent case in California may support an employer's right to take action based upon information contained in a social networking site.   In Moreno v. Hartford Sentinel, Inc., a Court of Appeals in California dismissed an invasion of privacy lawsuit based upon a newspaper's republication of statements contained in the plaintiff's MySpace site.   The statements were derogatory of the plaintiff's hometown, and she claimed to have received death threats and was forced to move as a result of the paper's republication.

The court reasoned that the plaintiff's "affirmative act [to publish on MySpace] made her article available to any person with a computer and thus opened it to the public eye. Under these circumstances, no reasonable person would have had an expectation of privacy regarding the published material."   The fact that the plaintiff made her postings available only to a limited audience did not change the analysis. 

Although the Moreno case did not involve and employer-employee relationship, the court's reasoning supports the proposition that information on social networking sites is not private, even if the author intends to make the site available to a limited audience.  While an employer should always use caution when relying upon such information in employment decisions, a decision like Moreno provides some confidence that such reliance does not constitute an invasion of the employee's privacy.

 

 

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