Work-related email accounts are ubiquitous and often are used by employees for personal reasons. Employees also may use their own personal email accounts on employer-provided resources—with or without the permission of the employer. Many cases have considered the right of an employer to access an employee’s email accounts from the employee’s work computer.1 A trio of recent cases, however, addressed the question of whether an employer may rely on evidence obtained from employee emails that are discovered on company owned computers.
An Employee’s Office Computer
A recent decision by the Supreme Court, New York County, discussed the various factors that will be considered in assessing the right of an employer to rely on employee emails in litigation with the employee, including the existence of email policies, the location of the emails when accessed, and the context of the claim.2
