American pastor Terry Jones vows to hold national Koran burning event

So you believe that the guy's firing was legal?

 

it depends if he agreed to a contract/code of ethics and what it contains

 

ha i'm wrong.

this happened in NJ. i'm certainly not a NJ attorney.

as an aside...do you practice law in Europe?

 

No, I don't. But I got admitted to the bar in Germany and New York and have not forgotten everything and am very confident that in light of the usual imbalance of power between employer and employee, freedom of contract is limited as to not allowing the employer to regulate the employee's private life outside of work - in any semi-respectable jurisdiction in the world, unless there are compelling reasons based on the nature of the employment relationship that would mandate that (e.g. the "working in intelligence" example vlaurelio came up with).

 

i'm not gonna do a bunch of research on this today. i'm sick at home, though.

start with page 10..because apparently employers can do just that in certain situations far less onerous than the intelligence examples.

http://www.honigman.com/files/Uploads/Documents/Social_Networking_Webinar_2010.pdf


and if you studied law in Texas, you know that most of employees here are at-will employees, anyway. they can be fired for anything, aside from race, religion, gender. in the same way, they can leave their job without notice for any reason.

so most employers in the state of texas could absolutely say, "if you want your job, drop your facebook account."

more to the topic, i went to an employment law CLE seminar recently where they were talking quite a bit about social networking sites. it's all brand new stuff. pretty interesting.

 

Hope you get well soon. Yes, I studied law in Texas, I believe we must have been at U of H at the same time (only one year for me).

 

So you think that an employer could say "if you want your job, get rid of your telephone at home"?

Even though undoubtedly employees have a weaker position in the US compared to most countries in Europe, as I am sure you know, even in an at-will relationship, it may matter a lot what reason is given for termination. And also, even though you can fire for any reason, that does not mean that you can legally put terms into a contract that regulate the employee's private life beforehand and expect to be able to enforce those.

But as usual...two lawyers, three opinions .

 

you wouldn't need it as a term to a contract if it's at-will employment. there is no contract.

and, yes...i think you could absolutely get rid of an employee because you think Facebook is the devil in the State of Texas.

the home phone thing is confusing to me...because it doesn't carry with it the concerns that employers have with respect to social networking sites.

 

The parallel is that both happens in the private sphere of the employee, presumably in the private time of the employee (otherwise, separate issue). Obviously, if the employee were pretending to act in an official capacity for the employer on the social networking sites, it would be a different issue.

 

in that link it lists concerns employers have with social networking sites being used by employees.

 

Thanks, interesting link (couldn't open it before as I was on a train and had a slow connection).

Slide 10 says:

Can You Restrict, Limit and/or Monitor Employee Usage?
␣ On-Duty or Use At Work: ␣ Yes, with properly worded notice to employees, an employer may control the use
of its own property, including its computer system network

␣ Lawful, Off-Duty Usage:
␣ Discrimination and harassment laws, privacy rights and other concerns such as free speech play a role
␣ Some states (including California, Colorado and New York) have enacted statutes that prohibit an employer from disciplining an employee for engaging in lawful conduct while away from the employer’s premises
␣ However, these statutes also provide exceptions that allow employers to limit otherwise lawful off-duty conduct where it creates a material conflict of interest for the employer or is reasonably related to the employee’s job.

This is basically what I said. Only if it is related to the employee's job, the employer could even have a legitimate interest in regulating it. Otherwise, he has no right to regulate the employee's life outside of work. The employee owes his work during work hours, not his whole life to the employer. I am sure that any reasonable court outside those states where it is expressly regulated by statutes would come to the same result.

But obviously, one could argue that the guy who burned the Quran created a "material conflict of interest" for the employer. But I bet you as a good attorney could at least get the guy a fat settlement amount in this case.

 

right..some states have specifically passed laws to that regard...that's part of what i was trying to point out. i have no idea about New Jersey.

don't stop on that one page though...other good stuff in that presentation.

 

So, 5 of the Top 10 D&D threads relate to Islam.

Why is that?

 

Dude, You Have No Quran!

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Don't tell me you haven't noticed that it has been this way pretty much the past couple of years at least (yes, I have been involved in that...).

Oh, and to answer your question, because violent Islamic extremism and the clash of cultures between the civilized world and the ass-backwards Islamist world are important topics of our time which people care about and which lead to heated debates.

 

understatement of the year

 

Well, I didn't start any of the four out of the top five threads from the top right now which deal with Islam.

 

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Good. Read them and learn.