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Suspended for Facebook Email

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suerte1212

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

About 5 months ago after a terrible day at work I emailed a co-worker of mine through my Facebook account. In that email I vented the reasons why I was frustrated with my employer. Today I was called into HR because someone had somehow printed the email and placed it in the General Manager's mailbox. They have suspended me upon investigation. Is this grounds for termination even though the medium in which this was done was through a private email between myself and someone else and not something publically posted nor communicated to others?
 


cbg

cbg

I'm a Northern Girl
Yes, it is. Whether you WILL be terminated, I can't say. But if you ARE terminated, it will be legal. Case law is currently upholding the rights of employers to terminate for what their employees say about them on social messaging media.
 
M

Mass_Shyster

Senior Member
One point I'll add is that if this is a government entity (you didn't specify in your post) , their actions could be considered a violation of your right to free speech.
 
H

HomeGuru

Senior Member
suerte1212 said:
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? New Jersey

About 5 months ago after a terrible day at work I emailed a co-worker of mine through my Facebook account. In that email I vented the reasons why I was frustrated with my employer. Today I was called into HR because someone had somehow printed the email and placed it in the General Manager's mailbox. They have suspended me upon investigation. Is this grounds for termination even though the medium in which this was done was through a private email between myself and someone else and not something publically posted nor communicated to others?
Click to expand...
**A: it could be grounds for termination or you could be terminated for no reason at all.
 
Zigner

Zigner

Senior Member, Non-Attorney
suerte1212 said:
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? New Jersey

About 5 months ago after a terrible day at work I emailed a co-worker of mine through my Facebook account. In that email I vented the reasons why I was frustrated with my employer. Today I was called into HR because someone had somehow printed the email and placed it in the General Manager's mailbox. They have suspended me upon investigation. Is this grounds for termination even though the medium in which this was done was through a private email between myself and someone else and not something publically posted nor communicated to others?
Click to expand...
Did you send this email FROM work?

Also, you stated that this was not something "...communicated to others..." which is simply not true. You sent the email to somebody else (an "other").
 
S

suerte1212

Junior Member
No I sent this at home through my facebook account. What I suspect is that someone somehow hacked into my facebook account and found the email, printed it and left it for the General Manger to read.

I understand that any malicious words or opinions hurtful towards any private organization made by an employee is grounds for termination. I was only curious to find out that since it was not something done through work, at work and it was not something posted in a blog or publically made known if it was grounds for termination in that matter. In conjunction with the idea that it was printed from an email that someone had gotten into.

If the overal consesus is that I will be getting terminated, then I guess I should start looking at other options.
 
Zigner

Zigner

Senior Member, Non-Attorney
suerte1212 said:
No I sent this at home through my facebook account. What I suspect is that someone somehow hacked into my facebook account and found the email, printed it and left it for the General Manger to read.

I understand that any malicious words or opinions hurtful towards any private organization made by an employee is grounds for termination. I was only curious to find out that since it was not something done through work, at work and it was not something posted in a blog or publically made known if it was grounds for termination in that matter. In conjunction with the idea that it was printed from an email that someone had gotten into.

If the overal consesus is that I will be getting terminated, then I guess I should start looking at other options.
Click to expand...
Maybe your co-worker handed it over...
Maybe your co-worker forwarded it to a friend who handed it over...

In any case, you DID transmit this information to someone else...
 
S

swalsh411

Senior Member
You should file for unemployment if you are terminated. Depending on the contents of the email, it may or may not be considered misconduct. If you were just venting your frustration I highly doubt a one-time incident (especially if you sent it from home using a non-work email) will disqualify you. If you threatened violence that's a different matter.
 
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