Privacy Issues in the Workplace

Dible v. Chandler In this case, a police officer sued his employer for terminating him because, while off duty, he operated a pornographic website that featured sexually explicit photographs and videos of his wife. The police officer took pains to keep the police out of the picture, “but because of other clues and information, it became publicly known that he was involved and that he was a police officer.” The court held that despite the plaintiff’s efforts to keep his affiliation with the police department a secret, there was a nexus between the police officer’s activity and his employment, reasoning that “it can seriously be asked whether a police officer can ever disassociate himself from his powerful public position sufficiently to make his speech (and other activities) entirely unrelated to that position in the eyes of the public and his superiors.” This language suggests that at least for some public employees, such as police officers, any off duty conduct will be deemed to have a “nexus” to his/her employment. 528 San Diego Unified School District v. Commission on Professional Competence (Lampedusa) 529 A California Court of Appeal found that a nexus existed between off-duty Internet postings of a middle school administrator and his performance as an educator. Frank Lampedusa was a tenured dean of students in the San Diego Unified School District. He placed an ad on Craigslist stating that he wished to engage in sexual relations with another adult. The ad also contained pictures of Lampedusa’s face and genitalia. However, the ad did not reveal Lampedusa’s name nor his employment. An anonymous parent of a student reported the ad to the school police who notified the District’s administration of Lampedusa’s ad. The District placed Lampedusa on paid administrative leave and eventually terminated him for “evident unfitness for service” and “immoral conduct” under the Education Code. Lampedusa appealed his termination to a three-member commission on professional competence. The commission ordered Lampedusa reinstated, reasoning that the District failed to establish a nexus between his conduct and his performance as an educator. The District appealed the decision to the trial court who also did not find a nexus between the off duty conduct and Lampedusa’s work as an educator. The Court of Appeal agreed with the school district’s termination decision finding a sufficient nexus existed between the misconduct and the impact on Lampedusa’s performance as an educator. In reaching its decision, the Court of Appeal gave weight to the hearsay evidence of the anonymous parent complaint to find that the conduct had an adverse effect on students. Lampedusa’s principal also testified that she lost confidence in Lampedusa’s ability to serve as a role model for students, thus establishing an adverse effect on other educators. The Court also gave weight to the fact that the conduct was not

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