Turns Out It's Not Sex Discrimination To Get Fired For Looking At Porn Sites
from the who-knew? dept
Eric Goldman alerts us to an appeals court ruling finding against a guy who claims that his firing was gender discrimination after the hospital he worked for found that he had been surfing porn and "hacking" sites. The guy's entire case seems like a huge stretch. In the department he worked for, there was one computer shared between 7 people, with this guy, David Farr, being the only guy. While each employee had a separate login, apparently whoever logged in first usually just stayed logged in all day. When it was discovered that a number of porn sites were listed in the favorites, the hospital did what sounds like a decently thorough investigation, and found it quite likely that it was Farr who visited the sites (one of the days the activity occurred was a Saturday where he was the only one there). He eventually admitted to visiting 17 of the 31 sites in question, but then later claimed that he had visited sites that installed malware on the computer that added the bookmarks to the porn sites. But then... when confronted again, admitted to visiting the 17 sites.He claimed that it was gender discrimination, since he was the only guy, there was an automatic assumption that he had visited the porn sites. Yet, the court points out that (1) he failed to show that a female employee wouldn't have been treated in the same way and (2) the hospital was incredibly thorough in investigating the issue, especially after he denied visiting some of the sites. They didn't just jump to a conclusion and fire him, but apparently went into quite a lot of detail in making sure that he had actually been visiting those sites. On top of that, the court notes that his employment was at-will, so the hospital had every right to fire him. It's difficult to see how he thought a gender discrimination claim would get very far given that he admitted to visiting some of the sites, as well as the amount of investigation that was done by the hospital. But, these days, people seem to think that anything they don't like that happens to them must be against the law.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: discrimination, porn
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Idiot
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Idiot
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Is it a gender thing?
I guess NOW he has all the time in the world to surf porn, AT HOME.
Who thinks women don't surf porn? Wanna know why? They aren't so dumb as to do it at WORK - just a guess mind you.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Is it a gender thing?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Is it a gender thing?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Sex Discrimination...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Sex Discrimination...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Against the law...
Or conversely, that any law they don't like can be ignored.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
what difference does it make
Why did they fire the guy! What is wrong with browsing porn at work.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: what difference does it make
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Is Porn such an overriding driver in your life that you have to look at it during the day, at work?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Now that is a valid point. Perhaps he should have gone with the addiction angle. Claiming he was addicted could have saved his job provided he attend counseling or what not. Might not have worked, but it would have stood a better chance than sexual discrimination. (IMHO and of course IANAL).
either way... what a tard
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
absentee IT department
Not that I buy into it from a real-life point of view, but didn't the defense miss a huge loop-hole/distraction by not claiming that the IT department made the misuse of the computer inevitable?
The next investigation at the hospital should be for gross incompetence in the IT department.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: absentee IT department
This hospital may have been the same way or not had a anti-porn firewall for similar reasons.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
at-will employment in Texas
At-will employment does not mean you can be fired for _any_ reason. Being fired as a victim of discrimination, say for your race or sex, is still illegal.
At-will employment means you can be fired for _no_ reason.
The only reason in an at-will state like Texas to give a reason when firing someone, is if you want to make it for-cause so you can deny unemployment benefits.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]