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California: Worker E-mails not protected — not even with a lawyer

[1] [2] [3] [4]

[5]By Tony DeCristoforo
Stoel Rives LLP [6],
Oregon Law Firm

A clear and comprehensive computer policy is an essential component of any employee handbook. Last week, a California appellate court ruled that when such a policy is in place, an employee who uses the company computer to e-mail her attorney about perceived harassment and discrimination in the workplace waives the attorney-client privilege.

In Holmes v. Petrovich Development Company, the plaintiff alleged that she was the victim of sexual harassment and retaliation arising from her employer’s response to her pregnancy. Before quitting her job, the plaintiff used her work computer to send e-mails to her attorney regarding possible legal action. As might be expected, the employer subsequently located these e-mails on its computer system, and used the e-mails as part of its defense of the employee’s lawsuit.

Ordinarily, communications between a client and her attorney are confidential and privileged. In this case, however, the employer’s policies provided that: (1) company computers were to be used only for company business, (2) the company would monitor its computers for compliance with this policy and thus might “inspect all files and messages … at any time,” and (3) employees using company computers to create or maintain personal information or messages “have no right of privacy with respect to that information or message.”

The court ruled that when the plaintiff used a company computer to e-mail her attorney about an employment action against her boss, with knowledge of her employer’s computer monitoring policy, the employee knowingly disclosed the information to the company, and her communications with her attorney lost their privileged character. Summing it up neatly, the court said that sending the e-mails via company computer “was akin to consulting her lawyer in her employer’s conference room, in a loud voice, with the door open, so that any reasonable person would expect that their discussion of her complaints about her employer would be overheard by him.”

This case reinforces that there are many benefits to an employer’s implementation of a well-written computer policy.