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Employer's Review of Text Messages on Company Pager Reasonable

By Sarah A. Kelly
July 29, 2010

In a closely watched case and in a nearly unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that the City of Ontario Police Department did not violate the Fourth Amendment privacy rights of its employee, police sergeant Jeff Quon, when it audited text messages he had sent and received on a department-issued paging device. City of Ontario, California, et al. v. Quon, et al., 560 U.S. ____ (2010). The Court's decision was narrowly tailored and applies only in the government employment context, in which employees may have constitutionally based privacy rights. The Court specifically declined to issue a “broad holding concerning employees' privacy expectations vis-'-vis employer-provided technological equipment.” Nonetheless, employers and employees in both public and private employment settings may try to apply some of the Court's commentary to other contexts.

The Case

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