Employment Law News Notes: Online harassment and the employer’s obligation to police email communications between employees.

As an employer, do you have an affirmative obligation to police the computer based communications between your employees? The New Jersey Supreme Court thinks so. In a recent decision that is likely to have far reaching implications, the New Jersey Supreme Court in the case of Blakey v. Continental Airlines, Inc. has ruled that employers may have a duty to monitor computer "bulletin boards" to prevent on-line sexual harassment between co-workers. In Blakey, a female airline pilot alleged that she was the victim of hostile work environment sexual harassment resulting from her co-workers’ posting of defamatory statements about her on the employer’s electronic bulletin board. The main issue in the case was whether the computer message board, which was maintained "off site" via an internet service provider, yet was utilized by management as an integral part of operations, was sufficiently part of the workplace. The Court held that it could be.

Although the message board was not physically located within the airport, it might nonetheless have been so closely related to the workplace environment that harassment occurring on the bulletin board was sufficiently work-related -- thus if the employer knew about the harassment and failed to stop it, the employer could be held liable.

The Court stated as follows: [E]mployees do not have a duty to monitor private communications of their employees; employers do have a duty to take effective measures to stop co-employee harassment when the employer knows or has reason to know that such harassment is part of a pattern of harassment that is taking place in the workplace and in settings that are related to the workplace.

In sum, although the employer is not required to spy on its employees, the employer does have an obligation to guard against sexual harassment between co-workers wherever it occurs in the workplace -- whether in the office, or in cyberspace.