ITS 351
Case law examples of workplace privacy cases
The laws on the books are only the first step in determining what is legal behavior. Court
interpretations are what make laws come alive—they are what determine how laws are
applied. The results of case law are often confusing, which makes it all the more difficult
to know what individual rights actually are.
Here is a chance to compare your perceptions to those of the courts. The following are
actual court cases. Considering what we’ve been talking about regarding laws such as
the ECPA, what do you think should have been the outcome of each of these cases and
why:
Watkins v. LM Berry & Co.: Carmie Watkins worked for LM Berry selling advertising
by telephone. Berry had an established policy of monitoring solicitation calls as part of
its regular training program. Berry also allowed employees to make personal calls and
were not told whether those calls would be monitored. A friend called Ms. Watkins at
work about a new job, and Berry monitored the call. Ms. Watkins sued.
Deal v. Spears: Sibbie Deal was employed in a store owned by Spears. Spears told Deal
that they wanted her to cut down her use of the store phone for personal calls and that
they might start monitoring her calls. The store was burglarized and Spears suspected
Deal was involved so started taping her calls. Spears taped 22 hours of her calls,
including sexually provocative conversations with a non-employee. Deal sued.
Arias v. Mutual Central Alarm Service: Mutual provided monitoring service for burglar
and fire alarms. To comply with industry practice, Mutual installed a tape recorder for all
calls to and from its central office. Employees in the central office unknowingly had all
of their calls recorded and sued.
Michael A. Smyth v Pillsbury: Pillsbury maintained an email system to promote internal
corporate communication between its employees. Pillsbury repeatedly assured its
employees that all email would remain confidential, and that it could not be intercepted
and used against employees as grounds for termination. Smyth received email
communications from his supervisor over Pillsbury’s email system at his computer at
home. Smyth responded and exchanged emails with his supervisor. At a later date,
Pillsbury intercepted those email messages and terminated Smyth, saying that Smyth’s
comments were unprofessional and inappropriate. Smyth sued.