In the Hernandez v. Hillsides Inc. decision, the California Supreme Court addressed some of the most important issues of workplace privacy.
In the case, the two plaintiffs were women who worked for the defendant Hillsides and shared an enclosed office where they performed clerical work during the day. Hillsides is a nonprofit residential facility for neglected and abused children, including victims of sexual abuse. The director of the facility learned that late at night, someone was accessing the company computer in the plaintiffs’ office and viewing pornographic Web sites. This conflicted with company policy and was squarely at odds with Hillsides’ mission of providing a safe haven for children.
The director of Hillsides set up a remotely activated hidden video camera in the office with the hope of catching whoever was coming in to access the computer. While he did not suspect either of the plaintiffs were the culprit, he did not notify them he had placed the video camera in their office. He never operated the camera during business hours, and neither of the plaintiffs’ activities were ever viewed or recorded by means of this surveillance system, and neither of the plaintiffs ever contended otherwise.
“Nevertheless, the plaintiffs sued Hillsides and the director alleging, among other things, that the existence of the video surveillance system intruded into a protected place and violated their constitutional right to privacy,” says Peter B. Maretz, a shareholder with Stokes Roberts & Wagner ALC.
The trial court dismissed the case on Hillsides’ summary judgment motion, but the intermediate Court of Appeal reversed it, finding that the plaintiffs had suffered an intrusion into a protected zone of privacy that was so unjustified and offensive as to constitute a privacy violation.
Smart Business spoke with Maretz about Hernandez v. Hillsides Inc. and what your company can learn from it.
Was the Court of Appeal’s decision the right one?
While the California Supreme Court ultimately found that the trial court correctly dismissed the case, it did so for different reasons. The court recognized that the office in question was in an administrative building that contained no treatment or residential facilities for any of the children on site. The office had a window with blinds, and an open panel at the bottom of the office door. Both plaintiffs testified they would, at times, draw the window blinds and use the office to change into exercise clothes at the end of the day. Hillsides had an electronic systems policy that notified employees they had no expectation of privacy on the company computer systems. Hillsides also offered evidence that, while the door to the office could be locked, several people other than the plaintiffs had keys to the door.