Labor & Employment Law

Public Policy Exception To Employment At Will and Porn

Workplace Prof Blog picked up on a story by Mass Lawyers Weekly here and the Legal Ethics Forum blog about a Massachusetts appellate decision that reversed a trial court's dismissal of an unlawful termination claim.

The plaintiff is an attorney who discovered child pornography on the computer of one of his firm's important clients. He notified his firm, which instructed him to hire a specialist to erase the pornography from the computer. He refused, stating that they couldn't destroy evidence of a crime and he ultimately notified the FBI.

The attorney was eventually fired by the law firm.

The appellate court held that revealing the child pornography didn't threaten any protected privileged or confidential information. It is hard to believe that it took a reversed trial decision to get to that point. It is also hard to believe that a law firm would not know better. This just demonstrates once again, that lawyers are employees like everyone else.

Mitchell H. Rubinstein

Hat Tip: Workplace Prof Blog

Full post as published by New York Public Personnel Law on June 01, 2009 (boomark / email).