Andre Yoskowitz
19 Jun 2010 12:10
The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of employers this week, in a case that will allow supervisors to read through employee's texts if they feel work rules are possibly being violated.
In the unanimous 9-0 ruling, the justices said they felt a police chief in California did not violate constitutional rights when he read the transcripts of sexually explicit texts sent from an officer's pager.
The ruling says the reading of the messages was reasonable, because it had "a legitimate work-related purpose." The chief was looking into whether officers were using their text pagers for police work, or for personal matters.
Police Sergeant Jeff Quon has sued the city of Ontario, California after he was told his messages were being read, and Quon had won in the Court of Appeals before losing this week in the highest court.
Quon had been sending sexually explicit texts to his wife and a girlfriend.