An employee got fired after a boss found porn sites in his computer’s Web browsing history. He sued for wrongful termination, claiming a computer virus was to blame. Read the facts and decide: Who won?

The facts:

The employee was told by his supervisors that pornographic Web sites had been accessed on his computer. He denied the dirty downloading. After his boss showed him the sites were visited while he was logged in under his username and password, he still insisted it wasn’t him. Rather, he said the computer was infected with a virus that placed false records of the site visits in his browsing history. The company didn’t buy it, and his boss fired him. He sued for wrongful termination.

The employer said:

The supervisor had reason enough to believe that he was browsing porn at work, which was grounds for immediate termination. Without definitive proof that it wasn’t his fault, the company had to let him go.

Who won the case?

Answer: The employer.

Why: Whether the man was guilty or not, he was an at-will employee, which meant the company was free to fire him even if it couldn’t prove the wrongdoing was his fault.

Things would have been different if the employee was under a contract, or if there were any discrimination red flags - for example if he was over 40 and replaced by someone much younger. If that was the case he may have been able to argue that the Internet issue was just a pretext for a discriminatory firing.

Note for HR: Problems like this can be avoided. Work with your IT department in setting up ways to block access to certain Web sites, or monitor where employees are spending their time online. If the company in this case had done that, it could have been able to tell if the man had gone to the sites or if his browsing history was altered by a virus.

And of course, make sure you have a clear policy on inappropriate Web browsing that all employees read and sign off on.

Have you encountered any problems like this? What policies and technology solutions do you have in place? Share with us in the comments section.