Does your manager have the right to monitor your telephone conversations at work? How about opening your mail? What about searching your desk or even your handbag? Prior to early 1999, Minnesota employers pretty much had the right to monitor employee activities and perform such searches with impunity. Now, as a result of a civil lawsuit, the issue isn’t so clear-cut.
The test case revolved around two women who sued Wal-Mart for invading their privacy. The two women, college students, were vacationing in Mexico in 1995 when the sister of one of the women took a picture of them naked in the shower. Upon their return to Minnesota, they took their film to Wal-Mart for developing. When they picked up their pictures, an enclosed notice stated that at least one of the pictures had not been developed because it was the store’s policy to refuse to develop pictures containing nudity. Several months later a friend of the two women made a comment about the picture and questioned their sexual orientation. Another friend informed the young women that a Wal-Mart employee had shown her a copy of the photograph and that it was circulating within the small community.
In late July 1998, the Minnesota Supreme Court acknowledged that Minnesota citizens have the right to bring lawsuits for invasion of privacy. The decision makes North Dakota and Wyoming the only remaining states that do not allow an individual to sue for invasion of privacy.
Legal experts indicate that the Minnesota Supreme Court ruling will have an impact on workplace privacy within the state. As a result of the ruling, employees may have a “reasonable expectation” of privacy within the workplace even though the court did not define “reasonable.” Local attorneys have gone on record as saying that virtually all aspects of the workplace environment will be affected. Telephone calls, email, background checks, references, drug testing, and desk searches are all, at least theoretically, covered under the ruling. Some attorneys argued that employers may not be protected from lawsuits even if they require employees to sign documents containing blanket disclaimers of any expectations of privacy at work.
“Today we join the majority of jurisdictions and recognize the tort of privacy invasion,” wrote Minnesota Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz in her opinion. “The right to privacy is an integral part of our humanity; one has a public persona, exposed and active, and a private persona, guarded and preserved. The heart of our liberty is choosing which parts of our lives shall become public and which parts we shall hold close.”
0 responses. Comments closed for this article.