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Human Resources Outsourcing (HRO – PEO – ASO – Payroll – Agency)

U.S. Supreme Court Decides Text Messaging Case in the Public Forum

In December, the United States Supreme Court agreed to review a federal court appellate ruling that held for California police officers who filed suit alleging that their superiors improperly accessed their electronic exchanges (see “U.S. Supreme Court To Decide Whether Text Messages Subject to Employer Scrutiny”).  The plaintiffs filed suit against the city and the test-messaging service for accessing text messages a police officer wrote and received using his department-issued pager, arguing their Fourth Amendment rights were violated. 

On June 17, 2010, the Supreme Court issued its decision, reversing the Ninth Circuit’s decision in favor of the plaintiffs, but on narrow grounds.  The Supreme Court specifically held that, since the search was work-related, it was reasonable and permissible and was not excessive in scope, and thus was not done in violation of the plaintiff’s 4^th Amendment rights.  The Court was reluctant to address the issue of whether the employee had a reasonable expectation of privacy – in light of “rapid changes in the dynamics of communication and information transmission.” Assuming the public employee did have a reasonable expectation of privacy in his text messages, the Court found that the search was motivated by a legitimate work-related purpose and was not excessive in scope. Thus, the Court held that the city’s review of the officer’s text messages was reasonable.

Although the court did say its decision could apply to the private sector as well as public employers (the defendant in this case was a municipal police department), because the case was decided on such narrow grounds it is not much of a precedent-setting decision.  Nonetheless, this is a good example of why it is not only important for an employer to establish policies, but to put them into practice in day-to-day operations.