The E-mail Administrator for Epson
In the case of Alana Shoars v. Epson America, Inc., an e-mail administrator in California, working for Epson, was fired after complaining to her employer that the e-mail of employees she trained was read and copied. She sued alleging wrongful termination in violation of the California statutes regarding ease dropping, wiretapping and slander. In court, Epson argued that the law makes no mention of e-mail privacy. The judge of the Superior Court of Los Angles County agreed and the case was dismissed. She appealed the entry of summary judgment to the California Court of Appeals and the ruling was affirmed. From a legal standpoint, the court's decision was correct. California law on wiretapping and ease dropping could only be applied if it occurred during transmission. This is a situation
in which the law has failed to keep up with technology. There are very few state or federal laws regarding privacy and e-mail. A California statute regarding ease dropping on confidential communications was held not to apply because the communication (e-mail) was not confidential to Epson. the judges may think the facts of the case are so unusual that first, any decision will not be appropriate for use as precedent, or second, they are unsure whether an appellate court would agree with that decision, and they don't want to establish rules that would apply in other cases until there is further guidance. Therefore, a case marked "not for publication" shows only what a particular court would do with a particular set of facts, being warned that you should not extrapolate from that case if you
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 537
Approximate Pages = 2 (250 words per page double spaced)
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