Chang was terminated from his employment at Infinite Energy, Inc., for allegedly

Question

Chang was terminated from his employment at Infinite Energy, Inc., for allegedly

leaking confidential information to competitors. Litigation ensued and during discovery

Infinite requested access to all of Chang's e-mail accounts. Although Chang turned over e-mails from his work account, he refused to turn over e-mails from his private account with Yahoo! Infinite claimed that the e-mails were essential to their case, and Chang contended that the e-mails were confidential and unrelated to his employment and, therefore, not within the scope of discovery.

1. Who prevails and why?

2. Is this information necessary for Infinite’s case?

Explanation / Answer

1.Chang may prevail in the case because employee’s right to privacy would help Chang to protect his personal emails from employer access. Employer may be able to access the private mails that are sent using the employer’s computer system but the employer cannot monitor the personal mails that are sent without using the company resources. Chang’s Yahoo account would contain many personal details and giving access to the same would be violation of the right to privacy.

2. There are many ways to leak confidential information to the competitors but it is less likely to use a work email account to leak the information as the employer would be monitoring all the emails sent from the company account. The private emails sent using the company systems also can be monitored if the company policy allows to do so and the employee is aware of the same. There are more chances to send the confidential information using the personal account from private network as the employer would not have access to the same. Hence it is necessary for Infinite to get access to the private emails to investigate the chances of information leakage.

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