Addicted to Love – Is an Affinity for Internet Pornography a Disability?

In 1986, English rocker Robert Palmer suggested that you might as well face it, you’re addicted to love. What if, however, rather than being addicted to love, one is “addicted” to watching others make love, on the internet, using an employer-provided laptop? Has “addiction” to internet pornography been accepted by a Canadian human rights tribunal as a "disability"?

As an aside, the image above is taken from an advertising campaign for what is touted as the world’s largest online pornography site. More information on the advertising campaign can be found on AdWeek’s website here: AdWeek May 20, 2014, which is obviously safe for work.

Comments on Facebook "Just Cause" for Dismissal

Can posts to one’s Facebook profile about a co-worker be grounds for “just cause” for dismissal? In yet another case from the labour world to consider this subject, United Steelworkers of America, Local 9548 v Tenaris Algoma Tubes Inc, 2014 CanLII 26445 (ON LA), Arbitrator Laura Trachuk has said “yes”.

Whose Invention Is It Anyway?

Does the existence of an employee/employer relationship disqualify an employee from patenting an invention discovered in the course of employment?

According to a 2000 decision from the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, Techform Products Ltd. v. Wolda, 2000 CanLII 22597; varied for reasons other than the issues considered in this post in 2001 CanLII 8604 (ON CA) the answer is "no."

Expect Privacy? Put a Password on It.

This blog, as well as other employment law blogs, heralded the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in R. v. Cole as a watershed moment for defining an employee’s rights to privacy with employer-provided technology.

However, as our friends at the criminal defence bar are quick to point out, Cole was a criminal case, decided mostly with reference to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms’ protection of the right to be secure from unreasonable search and seizure.

Last week the Court of Appeal for Ontario released another decision concerning Charter rights, and the right to search technology, R. v. Fearon, 2013 ONCA 106 (CanLII), and again, this employment lawyer cannot help but give it consideration notwithstanding the fact that it is, strictly speaking, a criminal decision.

Why Your Organization Needs a Social Media Policy

Imagine, for a moment, the most ridiculous act of self-harm that an individual could do himself. Did you imagine stapling your scrotum to a 4 x 4 wooden plank, and then uploading to YouTube a video of you doing that while wearing your work shirt? Because someone actually did that, and it partially speaks to why your business or organization needs a social media policy.

Supreme Court of Canada: Employees’ Rights to Privacy with Work Equipment

Do employees have a reasonable expectation of privacy in employer-provided technology?

In an update to my earlier post Employees’ Rights to Privacy with Work Equipment, on October 19, 2012, the Supreme Court of Canada has released its decision in the case of R. v. Cole, 2012 SCC 53.

The case answers the question of whether an employee can have a reasonable expectation of privacy in employer-provided technology.

Employees' Rights to Privacy and Remedies for Their Employer's Breach of Such Right

Employers often have the actual ability to access their employees’ private email accounts. But do they have the legal right to do so?

Providing employees with mobile technology, such as smart phones, laptop computers, tablets, etc. has the potential to be a minefield for employers. As I wrote in a post titled Overtime Pay and Mobile Technology, providing employees with smart phones carries with it the real risk of exposing employers to claims for unpaid overtime.

Yet there is another risk that employers face when they provide their employees with mobile technology and fail to implement policies on the uses to which to those employees may put that technology: The risk that employees will use that technology for non-work related purposes.

Overtime Pay and Mobile Technology

In July of 2012, the CBC featured a story on the issue of unpaid overtime.

In that piece, the author essentially argued that, “Mobile technology has helped employers squeeze more productivity out of their employees, but all those hours of work while technically off the clock leaves them open to lawsuits over unpaid overtime.”

Here is why, from an Ontario employment perspective, the CBC author may be correct.

The Right to be Free from Harassment... Online

In an earlier post (You Can’t Do That on the Internet) I canvassed what some Ontario Labour Relations Tribunals have done with respect to online conduct. In a July 2012 decision, Taylor-Baptiste v. Ontario Public Service Employees Union, 2012 HRTO 1393 (CanLII), the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario weighed in on the issue.

Social Media and the Rule against Solicitation

As someone who both practices employment law and blogs, tweets, whatever verb Facebook becomes, a question that is often put to me by persons contemplating moving to a new employer is whether that person is entitled to change the name of his or her employer on various social media sites.

The answer is more complicated than it would first appear; and, I would submit, also remains unanswered by Ontario courts. Nonetheless, below one will find the musings of this passive observer.

E-mail Entitles Employee

A lesson to Human Resources personnel: beware what you e-mail.  In a decision released May 18, 2012, Bennett v. Sears Canada Inc., 2012 ONCA 344, the Court of Appeal for Ontario affirmed a decision in which a long-service employee was awarded full post-retirement health and welfare benefits, notwithstanding the fact that she did not meet the strict wording of the employment policy.

You Can’t Do That on The Internet

Twenty or so years ago there was a television show called “You Can’t Do That on Television.” A frequent question emerging in employment law is what an employee can and cannot do on the internet.

Employees’ Rights to Privacy with Work Equipment

Do employees have a reasonable expectation of privacy in employer-provided technology?

Although it was a criminal case, the case of R. v. Cole, 2011 ONCA 218, presented an interesting question: Whether a high-school teacher had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of a work computer on which he was entitled to store personal information.

The decision is even more interesting because it was authored by Justice Karakatsanis, now of the Supreme Court of Canada.