Michigan becomes fourth state to enact law banning employers from requiring access to employees’/applicants’ social media accounts
Continue Reading Bans on Employers Requesting Social Media Passwords Continue as New Year Approaches
Workplace Investigations
South Carolina Supreme Court Addresses When Email is Backed-Up Under the Stored Communications Act
Are emails saved in one’s Yahoo! account stored for backup protection under the Stored Communications Act?
Continue Reading South Carolina Supreme Court Addresses When Email is Backed-Up Under the Stored Communications Act
Florida’s New “Sexting” Law Makes it Criminal for Minors to Transmit Sexually Explicit Materials Electronically
Florida has joined 20 other states have enacted legislation addressing teen sexting. Because employees frequently transmit these materials using their employer’s networks, retail, entertainment, hospitality and other industries that traditionally employ large numbers of younger workers may soon get dragged into criminal proceedings because of “sexting” by their younger workers.
Continue Reading Florida’s New “Sexting” Law Makes it Criminal for Minors to Transmit Sexually Explicit Materials Electronically
Deleting E-mails Can Constitute a “Damage” Under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
By Joseph J. Lazzarotti on
Posted in Information Management, Workplace Investigations
What is a company’s recourse when a former employee deletes e-mails and other company electronic information before he leaves? A case from Indiana provides a lesson.
When Meridian Financial Advisors began serving as Receiver for bankrupted OCMC, Inc., it took possession of a number of OCMC computers, including one belonging to Joseph A. Pence, OCMC’s President…
New Jersey Supreme Court Rules on Personal E-mail Privacy: Stengart v. Loving Care
By Jason C. Gavejian on
Co-author: Joseph J. Lazzarotti
The New Jersey’s highest Court has concluded that an employee, Marina Stengart, could reasonably expect that e-mail communication with her lawyer through her personal, password-protected, web-based e-mail account would remain private, and that sending and receiving them using a company laptop did not eliminate the attorney-client privilege that protected them. The Court…
Pretexting and the Need for Employers to Investigate Their Investigators
By Joseph J. Lazzarotti on
Posted in Workplace Investigations
As reported by Ameet Sachdev, of the Chicago Tribune, a jury found an employer responsible for the actions of its investigators who obtained a former employee’s phone records through “pretexting.” Of the $1.8 million awarded to the former employee for breaches of her privacy, the jury awarded $1.75 million in punitive damages. Regardless…