Legal Question in Employment Law in Pennsylvania
Disciplinary Action
A coworker and I were both frustrated due to comments, actions and annoyances of certain coworkers. We vented our frustrations in an email, specifically designated as ''PRIVATE'', between ourselves. Outlook has options where you can designate a specific email as normal, personal, private or confidential as well as direct the system to not copy, save or archive the message. Once the received email was read it was deleted and the sent response was not saved. Somehow this email was retrieved from the system. I question how this was done and by whom. Although some remarks may have been less than flattering, no profanity was used. After this brief correspondence, no comments stated privately between myself and the other employee in the email were ever verbalized nor did we demonstration our frustrations with those who were its source. We both continued to perform our duties and cooperate/work with all coworkers. Two days later I was called down meet with the Dept Head & HR Admin. I was confronted with this email, accused of not being a team-player and suspended for two days. The other employee was called in, confronted, also accused of not being a team player and terminated. I question the company's actions and seek your advice.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Disciplinary Action
You asked about a "private" email sent on an employer's computer system.
The current interpretations of law specifically holds that an employee has NO right of privacy as to any use of an employer's email system (or computers for that matter). And, no matter what settings you choose on your email client the settings on servers handling the mail will always determine what is done with the messages. My guess is that the employer has a robust document retention program which automatically archives and then destroys email after a certain period.
Likely your employer monitors email either using personnel, software or both. Marking an item private would make it stand out either way.
As for discipline, unless there was some unlawful discriminatory reason for discipline then an employer is able to discipline an employee in almost any manner it sees fit.
Regards,
Roger
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