Nowadays it seems to be evident that employees are under the permanent influence of their employers. Therefore, many of the aspects of the employees’ lives have the large outer impact of their workplace and the team of colleagues. However, there should also exist another part of the workers’ actions, which are definitely out of their organization’s reach. This necessity is a natural need of privacy, which concerns the private life and time beyond the borders of their enterprise. Nevertheless, this distinction between the private life and the work time creates some empty space, which creates a well debatable issue of employee monitoring and workplace privacy. The Federal and State Court practice proves that there exist a great number of cases when these concepts were argued. For example, the case of Falmouth Firefighters Union against Falmouth Town.
This paper examines the legal proceedings of the Falmouth Firefighter Union against Falmouth Town. The purpose of this paper is to describe this particular case and identify its place within the general concepts of employee monitoring and workplace privacy. Moreover, the paper focuses on the main aspects considering the case and the justification, supported by a number of efficiently cited sources.
This case is definitely directly connected to the issues of employee monitoring and the workplace privacy. Falmouth Town was charged by a former employee of the Falmouth Firefighter Union based on the accusation of sexual harassment. The plaintiff claimed that the town got some private information from his working Gmail account. Since the data from his personal e-mails was of an intimate and embarrassing nature, the company’s access to these messages is the violation of the workplace privacy.
Facts
The plaintiff was an ordinary representative of the Falmouth Firefighter Union. He claimed that the town had got access to his personal files and messages within his account on Gmail. These accounts, however, existed for every single official employee of Falmouth. Still, the plaintiff was the one charging against the town as the e-mails, which were retrieved and copied, were personal ones. They included affectionate materials and could influence the reputation of the plaintiff and damage his personal life.
In fact, the plaintiff supported his lawsuit with the statements from the Massachusetts Privacy Act, “a person shall have a right against unreasonable, substantial or serious interference with his privacy” ("General Laws: CHAPTER 214, Section 1B", n.d.). According to this restriction in the field of employees’ monitoring, this case can be judged as an interference in the private life. The retrieved materials, however, did not include any violation or the threat to the town, so that the company’s actions were considered by plaintiff the unreasonable act of interference with his privacy.
On the other hand, the defendant was sure to claim that this was not a full violation of the employee’s privacy. Falmouth Town claimed that the Gmail account, from which they retrieved the mentioned e-mails was not a private one. The town authorities purchased a separate domain to administer a number of Gmail accounts. These accounts were given to each employee of the town in order to provide them with one whole complex of job e-mail connections. Saving and copying letters from the accounts where possible only using the specific equipment and special servers, available only to the government. In these terms, the system was considered to be a reliable one.
The key defender’s document was the published email policy in order to identify the conditions of using the accounts for both the employees and the town. Predicting that the employees will frequently use their Gmail accounts to persuade personal communication, Falmouth stated, “employees should not assume that such messages are confidential or that access by the employer or its designated representatives will not occur” (Zakin, 2012). This document and this particular statement had to discourage employees from using the working accounts to transmit private information. Additionally, it omitted the fact that the accounts were totally private or confidential.
Issue
The email monitoring exists to identify the outer connections of the employees. If the revisers identify that the employee is involved in the cooperation with another company or their competitor, the company can review the email. Moreover, the company can even use the retrieved materials from this account to use them as an evidence in judging the trail against the employee ("Workplace Privacy and Employee Monitoring | Privacy Rights Clearinghouse", 2016).
The plaintiff was arguing for the town to unreasonably interfere with his private life. The materials, included in the emails, did not threaten the company or the town and did not discredit the plaintiff as an employee. Therefore, the messages were copied and saved without any reasonable basis. In these terms, the case was a violation of the employee’s privacy and even sexual harassment. On the opposite, the defender claimed that it did not violate the employee’s privacy as it examined the job email only.
Holding/Ruling
The court, which held the trail, at once pointed out that the defender was right to claim that the case had nothing to do with the interference in the personal life. Taking into the consideration the defender’s evidence as the more specific document to identify the conditions of using the emails and the main domain. Even after the investigation, the court claimed that the employee was not right to expect the security of his data. In these terms, the decision of the court was in favor of the employers, who was considered to implement no invasion into employee’s privacy.
However, the court did not investigate the whole issue of the Falmouth’s use of the worker’s Gmail accounts. The analysis of this particular case, however, did not bring the deeper research on the effectiveness and relevance of the existence of such issues. Therefore, by simply stating that the employee was expecting the unexciting thing to happen the Superior court has eradicated the necessity to examine the whole structure of the Falmouth domain, which could, in fact, contain the data of the unidentified cases of employee’s monitoring.
As a result, the employee was claimed to be unable to identify the fact of the security assurance, so that his expectations were not judged as a full lawsuit. Additionally, the main argument against the plaintiff was that he voluntary used the Gmail job account to submit his personal information. On the other hand, the defender has won the trail and was not charged with any punishment. Moreover, the ruling of the trial did not even question the effectiveness of the Falmouth common domain administrating all the accounts of its employees (Gogel, 2012).
Reasons for Holding/Ruling
The Superior Court was right to claim that the plaintiff had a weak evidential base, which did not even include the Falmouth email policy. In these terms, the plaintiff’s accusations of personal life intervention were considered to be unconvincing. Moreover, the fact that the employee submitted the materials himself omitted the fairness of the allegation of the sexual harassments.
However, this case stays in the line of the similar ones, which were judged in favor of the employers or the holders of the domain. The concept of the email monitoring is not a violation of the privacy as it does not interfere with the personal life, but only indicated the issues, connected to the particular employer and his contribution to the working process. However, in this case, even though the plaintiff’s arguments were fair by claiming that the materials did not threaten the company or its operation, they were retrieved unreasonably. Nevertheless, these statements, even definitely true, were improperly supported by the evidential and documentation base.
Conclusion
The case featuring the Falmouth Firefighters and Falmouth Town is an example of judging the issue of employee monitoring and workplace privacy. The lawsuit was presented by the former employee, whose personal and intimate data was retrieved by the town. However, this particular case of the accusation of the sexual harassment was won by the town as the evidence of the plaintiff was neither full nor convincing. The fairness of this case is a highly debatable issue as it not only addresses the particular case but also represents the whole concept of the email monitoring.
References
General Laws: CHAPTER 214, Section 1B. The 189th General Court of Massachusetts. Retrieved 12 May 2016, from https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartIII/TitleI/Chapter214/Section1B
Zakin, M. (2012). No Expectation of Privacy in Emails Sent Over Employer's Email Account, Massachusetts Court Decides | Employment Matters Blog. Employment Matters Blog. Retrieved 12 May 2016, from https://www.employmentmattersblog.com/2012/05/no-expectation-of-privacy-in-emails-sent-over-employers-email-account-massachusetts-court-decides/
Workplace Privacy and Employee Monitoring | Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. (2016).Privacyrights.org. Retrieved 12 May 2016, from https://www.privacyrights.org/workplace-privacy-and-employee-monitoring
Gogel, K. (2012). Employers, Maintain Control of Your Office Email Systems. - Gogel & Gogel. Retrieved 12 May 2016, from http://gogel-gogel.com/2012/06/04/employers-maintain-control-of-your-office-email-systems/
