Fired over email. Advice needed

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Fired over email. Advice needed

Posted by: reallymad
Date: 12/10/2006 8:20:26 PM

I was fired this past Friday because my boss invaded my personal email account and saw in my "sent" folder a resume I had emailed another company. This email was sent from home. I often check my personal email account at work, but I never ever send of read any correspondence from any other employers because I know they are monitoring emails in and out. What I believe they did was use a keylogger to snag my password, and then root around my Yahoo account looking for stuff. The resume I sent out was Thrusday night from my kitchen. I was fired the next day.

Do I have a case for privacy invasion?

Reply from:	kavakian
Date:	12/12/2006 10:38:00 AM
Reply:	Im confused how can they fire you for applying to different jobs? everyone does it, who the hell do they think they are, go to the labour board i dont think that is right at all....they cant fire you for something like that, you did nothing wrong. i would file a complaint and take this matter further.

Reply from:	reallymad
Date:	12/12/2006 10:56:00 AM
Reply:	Unfortunately in the state I live (NC) they don't need any reason what-so-ever to fire you. They could not like the cut of my blue jeans that day, and as long as no discrimination laws are violated, adios! My real contention is were any federal privacy/identity theft laws broken to obtain that information? If so, major lawsuit time.....

Reply from:	goodboss
Date:	12/12/2006 12:43:00 PM
Reply:	No state or federal privacy laws were broken. Your ex-employer's computer system is your ex-employer's property and if you were using it to access your personal email account you were in effect stealing from your ex-employer - stealing paid work time, and stealing use of your ex-employer's computer. As well, by using your ex-employer's computer to access your personal email account, you in effect gave your ex-employer your personal email account password. This is how the courts will see it. With regard to identity theft, this in no way comes anywhere near the definition of identity theft. First, your email password is not an identifying record. Second, you would only have a case for identity theft if your ex-employer used an identifying record of yours (such as your SSN or your credit card account number) for its financial gain and to your financial detriment. For example, if I somehow (by any means whatsoever) got 'hold of your credit card account number but then never did anything with it, you would not have a legal case against me. You would only have a case against me if you sustained financial damages as a direct result of me using your credit card number for my financial gain. Sorry if I sound harsh, this is the legal advice you asked for. Chalk this one up to experience and move on. Good luck in your job search.

Reply from:	goodboss
Date:	12/12/2006 12:55:00 PM
Reply:	To kavakian: My crystal ball tells me you're probably in Canada. As you may have noted, the OP is in the US, and US employment laws on this type of situation (and most other situations as well!) are very, very different from those in Canada. In the future, before you start providing legal advice to people, you really should find out what country they're in first. And if they're in Canada, you should then try to ensure that the legal advice you're giving is accurate. The advice you gave the OP is still incorrect even if he had been in Canada - his ex-employer still had the right to fire him for job-hunting on company time. The only legal issue would have been whether or not the OP was entitled to termination and/or severance pay, and that would depend largely on how long he'd been with the company, how much time he'd spent accessing his personal email account at work, what his work performance records were like, how old he was, and whether he was management-level or not. Finally, please note that there is no such entity as a "labour board" anywhere in Canada, at the federal, provincial or municipal level. There are entities called "labour relations boards" which cover union-management issues, and there are entities called "employment standards boards" which cover non-union employment law issues. However, to reiterate, there are no "labour boards" in Canada. If you're going to be handing out legal advice to people, at least get your entities straight!

Reply from:	reallymad
Date:	12/12/2006 1:32:00 PM
Reply:	"job-hunting on company time." Incorrect. I job hunted on MY TIME at home from my kitchen. They used my Yahoo password to access my account to see who/what I was sending resumes to. Nothing was EVER transmitted from a company computer on company time. Always from home. Whether it's legal or not, it is at a very minimum highly unethical IMO. They have no right to investigate what email I transmit from my house from my house.

Reply from:	reallymad
Date:	12/12/2006 1:55:00 PM
Reply:	Perhaps a little more detail is in order: For the first 3+ years I worked at this company, there was no "company" email acount. I used my personal Yahoo e-mail account to interact with customers, vendors, distributors, basically all manner of company activity as well as personal. In March 2006, the company I worked for was bought. Shortly after that, I recieved an official company e-mail address and account. But since for the previous 3 years all these customers/vendors/distributors had been e-mailing me at my personal account, they continued to do so. Therefore, I had to periodically check my personal Yahoo-based email account to see if anyone had emailed me anything work-related. That is when I believe the captured my Yahoo account password. Thursday Dec 7th, at approximately 6:30 pm, I sent a resume to "ACME Corp" from HOME using my Yahoo email account. On Friday Dec 8th, I was terminated because I was looking for another job, and the specific example that was given to me was the resume I had sent to "ACME Corp". The only way they would know that is if they had acquired my password and monitored that account for any email I had been sending out, whether at work or at HOME.

Reply from:	goodboss
Date:	12/12/2006 4:26:00 PM
Reply:	Okay, so they used your password to monitor your home email. Very naughty of them, but not illegal. It's still not identity theft because your personal email password is not a legal identity record + they didn't use it to gain financially, to your financial detriment. So even if personal email passwords WERE classified as a legal identity records, you can't sue them for identity theft because you have no damages. And it's not an invasion of privacy because very little stuff in the US is classified as legally private and what there is that's classified as legally private is mostly medical stuff. As well, even though you weren't using your ex-employer's time and tools for your job search, it's still perfectly legal for employers to fire employees summarily for job hunting, no matter how those employers find out about said job hunting, and no matter where or how said job hunting was conducted. And finally, have you changed your email password yet? If you haven't, you should, and immediately! If your ex-employer was snoopy enough to look at your personal emails before you were fired, your ex-employer can certainly be snoopy enough to be reading them after you were fired. And it would be perfectly legal for him/her to tell any prospective employers what he/she has seen in your personal email account, pre-fire and post-fire. Again, I'm sorry if I sound harsh, I don't intend to, it's just hard to make "no you have no legal grounds to sue your rotten old snoopy ex-employer" sound positive and upbeat. The only answer that would sound like that is "yes, and here's how" and I can't tell you that because it would be a lie.

Reply from:	goodboss
Date:	12/12/2006 4:35:00 PM
Reply:	By the way, you're going to continue to feel "reallymad" for another few weeks or so at least, that's how long it takes to get over being fired. Even those people who've been fired for really good reasons, like intentional theft and deliberate, wilful gross misconduct, and also all those people who get paid off with really excellent severance packages, feel this way after being let go. It takes a while for everyone to get past this sort of thing, and obviously you're no different. I strongly urge you to try as best you can to get over this as quickly as possible so that you can focus on your job search and avoid projecting a negative attitude to prospective employers. One way to get over it is to squelch any thoughts of suing your former employer - that just adds to the negativity and also increases your frustration, because you have no legal claim against your former employer. One way to look at all this is to realize that you WERE trying to leave anyway (and they just got to you before you got to them), that the reasons you wanted to leave in the first place have been confirmed by their snoopy actions, and now you have the time to spend on a really good job search. The best way to get over a lost job is to start working on a new job. If you need any job hunting advice, including what to say to prospective employers about how you lost this job, and what constitutes a "really good job search" let me know.

Reply from:	reallymad
Date:	12/12/2006 6:06:00 PM
Reply:	I've changed my password 3 times since Friday. I've also already been contacted by 3 separate companies in the same field....

Reply from:	goodboss
Date:	12/12/2006 7:05:00 PM
Reply:	What do you mean by contacted by three companies in the same field? Is this a good thing (meaning that they're all wanting to hire you) or a bad thing (meaning...what?) - please elaborate.

Reply from:	reallymad
Date:	12/13/2006 6:32:00 AM
Reply:	Apparently my services are highly sought after since 3 companies (one a direct competitor) are contacting ME (instead of me contacting them).

Reply from:	kavakian
Date:	12/13/2006 9:54:00 AM
Reply:	to "goodboss" i think u think too highly of urself....do u have something against canadians? go to hell....i was just trying to be considerate because i know what its like to be fired....using email is not something i believe u should get fired for, unless being told in advance that internet is not allowed to be accessed from work. i was not giving out legal advice....but most definitely i would personally go to the labour board..."goodboss" why do u think u know it all?

Reply from:	kavakian
Date:	12/13/2006 10:07:00 AM
Reply:	excuse me "goodboss" after reading ur note to me again, u stated there are no labour boards in Canada, where did u happen to get that info, because ur totally wrong. go to www.owa.gov.on.ca also here are some toll free #'s for the labour board out of my st.catharines ontario canada phone book: Employment standards (working conditions) 1-800-531-5551 Human resources & social development canada (www.hrsdc.gc.ca) or simply call 1-800-463-2493 Labour standards open 24 hrs for reporting 1-800-463-2493 Worker advisor, advice for injured workers 1-800-435-8980 There you go, dont tell me here in Canada my home country that there is no labour board, do some research of your own before you hand out legal advice to ME. Merry Christmas

Reply from:	Mjenny
Date:	12/13/2006 12:33:00 PM
Reply:	My friend went through the same situation as you. She was very depressed with the whole firing situation. But days after the termination, she turned her feelings around by saying "I was not fired, I quit". So take it as a positive experience, reallymad! Good luck on your job search!!

Reply from:	goodboss
Date:	12/13/2006 2:26:00 PM
Reply:	To really mad: That's excellent then! Good luck to you and I hope/expect you'll be working again really soon! And then you'll forget all about this bad experience!

Reply from:	goodboss
Date:	12/13/2006 2:42:00 PM
Reply:	To kavakian: I am a Canadian citizen. I was born in Canada and I have lived here all my life. I am very proud of being a Canadian and in response to your question, I have nothing against my fellow Canadians. (Although I do admit to occasionally being a tad embarassed by SOME of my fellow Canadians.) Regarding my qualifications, I have many relevant educational and professional qualifications, most/all of which you probably wouldn't understand. In addition, I am just now entering my 20th year of providing professional employment-related legal advice and guidance to organizations and individuals across Canada and the United States. I have also facilitated seminars to lawyers on employment law. So far, not one of my clients has objected to the quality and validity of the advice and information that I have provided. Regarding the contact information you provided in your most recent post, I note that not one of the entities you have listed is formally called a "labour board." To reiterate, there is no such entity in Canada (there are Rabour Relations Boards, and there are Employment Standards Commissions/Branches, but there are NO "Labour Boards"). I must also advise you that not one of these entities is in any way capable of assisting reallymad with his issues, so why you've posted their contact information here is beyond me. Finally, if telling someone to complain to a mysterious yet official-sounding entity called a "labour board" ISN'T legal advice, I don't know what is!

Reply from:	kavakian
Date:	12/13/2006 6:03:00 PM
Reply:	i guess we both dont understand eachother then, i never came on here to argue...but simply to vent out for what goes wrong at my current job. take care. bye

Reply from:	goodboss
Date:	12/13/2006 6:16:00 PM
Reply:	gotcha

Reply from:	emarie
Date:	12/23/2006 7:45:00 PM
Reply:	Whoa!!! You were using a private, non-company held account, and accessing it from home to do you job search, and NOT on company time, and he had software to steal your private passwords at work?! I suppose technically, the first tume you checked the yahoo account at work you were in violation because it was not a work account, but that is a real stretch on their part of the times show you did this applying for work on off hours, did not use company time or company email, and were generally professional about your corporate email account. Legally, I do NOT think they have the right to steal private acccount passwords, though they DO have the right to look at anyone who is using THEIR email, or accessing another account in a non--business-related way during work hours (though I don't think privacy laws allow them to use keystroke loggers or the like to steal email passwords from other accounts). Wow! This was a slimy deal. It's a new area of law, but I think it will hinge on how he got the yahoo password...if you checked that at work (good idea never to do so), and you will need to prove it was NOT done on company time (lunch or after work) and that any job applications were done from home. How DARE they read your email sent from home. That is such a violation I HAVE to believe you'd have a case. The courts have ruled that privacy is an inalienable property right, and your yahoo account was not theirs to access. However, email is such a risk these days...the DO go in and read your emails...you all DO know that right? Best never to say anything personal, nver check other private accounts at work, and I have tried a policy that requires me to keep my emails fewer than ten words, including salutations. I learned this the hard way.

Reply from:	emarie
Date:	12/23/2006 8:46:00 PM
Reply:	good boss, I guarantee you there is settled law against wrongfully accessing an employee's private email account. Often when we change jobs we have clients using an old email. New employers should be pleased that we bring clients with us. It sounds to me like reallymad did not improperly use company time, computers or other resources for a job search. He checked the yahoo account at work for business reasons, and they (secretly) robbed password. A company is not free to look at what we do with our private email on our own time. This is just too Big Brother. That boss needs to go back to Ethics 101. As for your glib "get over it" advice, you are not very empathetic. Don't you feel dirty when you read people's private emails? And to someone who has just lost a job before the holidays who is defended here, to say "gotcha!" just reveals what am egotist you must be. You CLAIM you kknow the law. Hmmm. Visit the Affirmative Action office and lay out these facts. You have a VERY rude awakening in store. Consult that company's attorney. If you are already reading private off-work email you are a Peeping Tom. If the world were fair, YOU would someday work under ME, and when I caught YOU acting in such a dubiously ethical fashion I would use it as a teachable opportunity. No notes under doors, or emails, voice mails or talking parrots. I'd line up Affirmative Action, the corporate attorney, the HR director and my immediate supervisor and we'd read you company policy, relevant legal statutes, relevant federal workplace laws, and a few chapters from Kant, Aristotle, John Stuart Mill and other ethical philosophers. Then I'd hand you a book on business ethics and show you the door. But you claim to be a lawyer, so you probably have no need for Ethics. And I grew up in Canada as well, a civilised country that doesn't deserve you. [Reallymad...forget seeking redress through the courts ...look forward, not back for YOUR sake!)

Reply from:	reallymad
Date:	12/26/2006 8:55:00 AM
Reply:	Slimey? You bet. These guys are complete slimeballs and associate themselves with slimballs. I susoect they have loose Cleveland-area mafia ties. I've been told that I likely have a decent case. I mean, if an old lady can get $1million from McDonalds for spilling hot coffee on herself, then certainly I can get something. Problem is, I don't really have the $$$ to find out, and even if I'm right, I don't believe these guys have a spare nickel. They purchased a $1million/year small business that was operating on a 50% margin and proceeded to run it into the ground. They've had to borrow money twice this past year to cover payroll. Like I said, there was a really good reason I was looking for another job. Their business management skills are wretched. My payback will be them filing Chapter 11 in less than a year.

Reply from:	emarie
Date:	12/26/2006 10:05:00 AM
Reply:	You know, people joke about that coffee case because it made great Late Night punchlines, but they gave her a purchase without any warning that she did with what many of of probably (used to) do: she pput it between her thighs. She ended up with third degree burns, severe disfiguring to her external genitalia, long-term hospitalization for skin grafts, and thousands in debt. NO COFFEE has to be THAT hot, and the Corporate Defendant in that case was proven negligent. Just a clearing of the facts on that case. I am sensitive to the right wing perception that Trial Attorneys are out to gouge big business and profit for stupid reasons. Watch Erin Brokovich again. THAT is what these attorney do, and it isn't usually fribolous. They protct us from abusive people, negligent people, irresponsible people. O.k., sorry for the sidebar: If you are able to find an attorney to take this on a contingency basis, then I would counsel proceeding. However, even an attorney who tells you have a good case has to deal with juries or judges who might find the facts different from you. Never step into a lawsuit lightly with dollar signs in your eyes, even if you DO deserve it, and you SHOULD win. Read what Mark Twain had to say about juries. It's too unpredictable for you to invest your money and a LOT of emotional energy. It takes a LONG time and drains you in every way imaginable. Courts are lousy places to seek healing, not matter how right you are. Plus, IF these guys have underworld connections, really, do you think they are going to happily let you walk off with their money even legally? I wish you could sue and win. And I think if you shop for a tough trial attorney who will take this on a contingency basis, you might even prevail. But there are no guarantees, and you would have to be prepared to have them say horrible (and probably untrue) things about you in court.

Reply from:	emarie
Date:	1/1/2007 11:00:00 PM
Reply:	Lonnie: Eileen again. Would you go to the Employee loyalty link, read the comments, and please comment on the attitude of that guy...people here are NOT talking about "warm fuzzie" being needed. It's just like Aretha says: R E S P E C T Tell your other friends here to go to that site, too. He is ridiculing us for not being true professionals about our "business transaction" and basically calling everyone here a big baby. I think he's due for a smackdown. He's entitled to his views but he represent corporations, and sucking up to them is his livelihood. No compoassion for what people here have gone through.

Reply from:	emarie
Date:	1/1/2007 11:08:00 PM
Reply:	Reallymad: We need your voice emarie again. Would you go to the Employee loyalty link, read the comments, and please comment on the attitude of that guy...people here are NOT talking about "warm fuzzie" being needed. It's just like Aretha says: R E S P E C T Tell your other friends here to go to that site, too. He is ridiculing us for not being true professionals about our "business transaction" and basically calling everyone here a big baby. I think he's due for a smackdown. He's entitled to his views but he represent corporations, and sucking up to them is his livelihood. No compassion for what people here have gone through.

Reply from:	goodboss
Date:	1/3/2007 6:09:00 AM
Reply:	emarie, why are you so obsessed with me? And why are you trying to drag everyone else into your obsession? You really need to re-focus on your own problems. All these posts about me are starting to make you look really sick. Please be reminded that your problems started a long time before you met me.

Reply from:	goodboss
Date:	1/3/2007 6:10:00 AM
Reply:	reallymad, have you accepted one of those new job offers yet? If yes, how's it going? And how are you feeling, now that the initial anger's probably worn off somewhat?

Reply from:	reallymad
Date:	1/3/2007 6:36:00 AM
Reply:	I talk to the the guy again today. I plan to accept the job. I'll let you know soon.

Reply from:	goodboss
Date:	1/3/2007 7:17:00 AM
Reply:	Good to hear. I hope things work out well for you. If you do ever have any work-related issues in the future, feel free to post 'em here and I'll do my best to help you out.

Reply from:	reallymad
Date:	1/9/2007 8:36:00 AM
Reply:	Update: Looks like I'll be starting at a new job late January/early Feb. It's with a company that is a direct competitor to my former company. It will now be my job to put my former employer out of business. Which won't be hard, given their lack of business skills. Thanks all. Revenge is a dish best served cold....

Reply from:	goodboss
Date:	1/9/2007 11:38:00 AM
Reply:	Fantastic!

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