An employee is fired for handing out sensitive information. What if she sues for retaliation, claiming she gave the documents to her lawyer while involved in a lawsuit against the company?

The facts:

An employee was involved in a class action suit against the company involving a pay discrimination claim. The attorney representing the plaintiffs asked the employee to send any and all documents related to the case so they could be submitted as evidence. For some unexplained reason, the docs the employee sent included confidential information about the company’s customers. When the company found out, it fired her for violating its privacy policy. She sued for retaliation, claiming she was fired because of her involvement in the equal pay suit.

The employer said:

The termination wasn’t retaliatory. The documents she turned over had nothing to do with the lawsuit, and by releasing them, she posed a threat to the customers’ privacy.

Who won the case?

Answer: The employer.

Why: The court ruled that just because she was participating in a lawsuit while she turned over the documents didn’t mean she was protected from discipline when breaking the company’s privacy policy.

Since releasing them was completely unnecessary and unrelated to the lawsuit, firing her for doing it couldn’t have been considered illegal retaliation,

Cite: Niswander v. Cincinnati Insurance Co.

Tags: attorney, ID theft, lawyer, privacy, retaliation, sensitive documents