Defamation of Character???

[kevin1981]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? New York

A co-worker is sharing photos of me at work of a drunken night years ago with fellow co-workers without my consent. I have not seen these photos and have no memory of the night. I have heard comments at work that imply that these photos could possibly be of pornographic nature? Can this employee be fired for sharing these photos?

After notifying Human Resources of my suspicions they have let me know that they are searching his computer for evidence and have set a meeting up with me. Would such pictures go against ethics, company policy, misuse of email, defamation of a co-worker?

 

[The Occultist]

Defamation requires that the claims be false. If it happened, and especially if there is photographic evidence of it, then it obviously cannot be false. So, defamation cannot apply.

Ethics? The laws don't care about ethics.

Company policy? This website is about law, so you can't bring company policy up here. After all, who here can know what the policy is at your company? And even if there is a problem, you can't pursue action legally, only through the guidelines set up by the company.

Misuse of email? Again, not a legal issue.

The only thing you MIGHT have a chance of is some sort of expectation of privacy issue, but if these things happened in a public place, then there is definitely nothing you can do.

The lesson here: don't get so drunk that you can't control your actions and cause you to do something you would not like other people to see.

 

[cbg]

Can the employee be fired for sharing the photos? Sure he can. The employer is not REQUIRED to fire him for it but they CAN.

But here's the flip side. Can YOU be fired for being the subject of such photos? Same answer. EXACTLY the same answer.