neo-ninja Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 Hi All, I was wondering if what you guys thought about this (my younger brother is going through it now): Basically a few months ago we were told we would be moving office, not a lot of people were happy, and it’s all be shrouded in great mystery. Which has brought to light lots of gossip and rumors about several senior people profiting personally financially from the move etc.. Now my question is if these rumors have been discussed on internal email systems (by a lot of people probably 10% of the work force) and one of the senior members who were being discussed was to find out. What legally can he do? From my opinion I don’t think there is any law about discussing or be rude behind peoples backs this happens in my work place, however from a professional point of view is something that shouldn’t happen and the only real thing I can see happening is people being given a disciplinary and a warning and potentially making life difficult from that point on. Am I right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ioneabee Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 (edited) legally - no issue however, if they've been defamatory - at the least it could be internal discipline (and whatever processes are in place for that) Edited March 7, 2013 by ioneabee Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
docwra Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 (edited) Its effectively the same as walking up to your boss and calling him a £$%*!!, what do you think would happen then? Depending on severity of emails and who they were distributed to its either misconduct (discioplinary, wraning) or gross misconduct (instant dismissal) but either way I dont think the senior members of staff are going to have alot of time for the gossips ......... Very foolish to use company email to discuss your guvnors TBH though, not much sympathy here. Edited March 7, 2013 by docwra Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ekona Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 Check your IT policy. I'm guessing it will say that they have the right to monitor all messages and if anything is found to be dodgy, then they can and will take action. In theory, as Ioneabee said above, if anyone has been stupid enough to commit anything dodgy to internal email then they could well find themselves dismissed on gross misconduct. Spreading rumours/lies about senior partners or the business as a whole is not a particularly smart idea! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AliveBoy Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 I suppose (I'm no legal eagle so don't count on me for this) depending on the severity, they COULD sue for slander? If someone had sent an email out saying "so and so is only moving us to a new office so that he gets 100k in his back pocket" you're basically accusing him of embezzling money to however many people that are in the conversation. If that gets forwarded on to other people maybe not in the company (ie you or us!) it could be seen as purposefully damaging the name of the individual or the company. Taken from some random website: "You can prove defamation on your word alone, even though it is always better to have some confirming evidence. (a letter, a memo, an e-mail, statements from fellow employees confirming the defamatory remarks about you, etc.) You can testify in court as to statements made by others about you. This means that the "hearsay" rule does not apply to the testimony in court which repeats defamatory statements.made out of court. You do not have to prove damages in defamation cases. Damages are presumed. This means that you do not have to testify that you were emotionally destroyed or had to see a psychiatrist or other mental health specialist or doctor." I think you'd have to come across a nasty judge for this to happen, but people have been given massive punishments for smaller things on places like twatter. Suppose it all depends on how many people were involved and how nasty the individuals who feel aggravated by it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chesterfield Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 Check your IT policy. I'm guessing it will say that they have the right to monitor all messages and if anything is found to be dodgy, then they can and will take action. In theory, as Ioneabee said above, if anyone has been stupid enough to commit anything dodgy to internal email then they could well find themselves dismissed on gross misconduct. Spreading rumours/lies about senior partners or the business as a whole is not a particularly smart idea! This ^ It policies as standard will allow for monitoring of messages (as the company IT should only ever be used for business). Being defamatory about the business you are employed by could be treated as gross misconduct.this could carry the punishment of dismissal. The company may be on decent ground to do that as well, would any company be expected to employ an individual that has been publicly negative about that business to ther employees? Also, put yourself in the business owners shoes - would you want that person working there, would you still want to give them the promotion opportunities or give them a decent pay rise or increased responsibility. Doubtful. If you are going to slag an employer off, my advice would be not to do it on that employers time and using their systems. You wouldn't pay somebody to slag you off on your own facebook page to all your friends, so I doubt the company would like their email system being used to slag them off either... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyser Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7277/Bosses-sack-staff-e-mails.html For your reading pleasure Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neo-ninja Posted March 7, 2013 Author Share Posted March 7, 2013 Ok lets spice things up a bit what if the discussion on the emails was about the senior member actually doing something illegal and against company rules themself? Now how does that change the picture? Lets be clear here - i completely agree with what people were saying, I understand missconduct and a disiplinary make sense (gross missconduct is debatable I would have thought) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoogyRev Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 Instead of discussing it on email, a conversation should happen with another senior, or more senior member to report this. I guess it depends on what has been done. Either way chit chat between employees on this matter and not reporting it can also bring disciplinary action to the employees. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoogyRev Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 P.S the employee policy/manual will contain all the information and what to do in this situation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fodder Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 Ekona and Chesterfield have pretty much covered the salient points. I used to look after a reasonably sized email infrastructure and dealt with ediscovery too. Just to add I've seen HR in some circumstances bring disciplinary action against any recipient for not reporting the misuse too Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aliensurfer Posted March 7, 2013 Share Posted March 7, 2013 As someone who writes these policies for companies, I can agree with the replies above, in that anything said over the IT systems is likely logged and could be used in any misconduct case. There doesn't always have to be a strict policy in place as case law has shown an implied monitoring when you're using company equipment. Anyone discussing this topic over work mail is mad and should stop immediately IMHO 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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