Business Law
Employee Monitoring and Legal Liability
1. Employers can bear legal responsibility if they do not adequately monitor their employees. This is why sometimes extreme measures are taken to keep track of employee's computer usage. There is a case from New Jersey several years ago in which a company was held liable by an appellate court because an employee transmitted child pornography from his workplace computer. The court ruled this way because the employer had a policy which stated that all email messages sent from the workplace were the property of the employer, and not the employee, along with evidence which showed that company officials knew the employee was viewing pornography on his computer but did not take adequate steps to shut down such activities or investigate the extent of the employee's violations of company policy. This is a very chilling opinion for employers to digest.
Employer Promises re: Privacy
2. One of the most common questions from our business clients is whether their promises regarding email and other workplace privacy issues are legally binding. Not necessarily is the response we give. Usually, when an employer states a policy regarding any issue in the workplace, including privacy issues, that policy is legally binding, such as stating the policy in an employee handbook, memo or in a union contract. However, some court's have upheld employee terminations, for issues related to the termination of an employee for personal emails despite the fact that the company policy was that personal emails could be sent, if the email messages are deemed highly inappropriate for workplace communications.
1. Employers can bear legal responsibility if they do not adequately monitor their employees. This is why sometimes extreme measures are taken to keep track of employee's computer usage. There is a case from New Jersey several years ago in which a company was held liable by an appellate court because an employee transmitted child pornography from his workplace computer. The court ruled this way because the employer had a policy which stated that all email messages sent from the workplace were the property of the employer, and not the employee, along with evidence which showed that company officials knew the employee was viewing pornography on his computer but did not take adequate steps to shut down such activities or investigate the extent of the employee's violations of company policy. This is a very chilling opinion for employers to digest.
Employer Promises re: Privacy
2. One of the most common questions from our business clients is whether their promises regarding email and other workplace privacy issues are legally binding. Not necessarily is the response we give. Usually, when an employer states a policy regarding any issue in the workplace, including privacy issues, that policy is legally binding, such as stating the policy in an employee handbook, memo or in a union contract. However, some court's have upheld employee terminations, for issues related to the termination of an employee for personal emails despite the fact that the company policy was that personal emails could be sent, if the email messages are deemed highly inappropriate for workplace communications.