Does an employer have the right to open mail sent to a particular employee if it is sent to the employer’s address?
— Andy
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Federal and state laws protect the privacy interests of California employees in various ways. Sandra Rappaport of Hanson, Bridgett, Marcus, Vlahos & Rudy offers the following perspective on the question of opening an employee’s mail at work:
That’s one of those areas that can be covered by your policies. Any mail that comes into the employer’s premises can be considered to be property of the employer if you’ve put employees on notice of that. But if employees have no reason to think that the employer might open that mail, then there is a chance that they would have an expectation of privacy. For example, if the mail is labeled “Personal/Confidential” or “only to be opened by addressee,” and the employer hasn’t given the employees any notice that the employer might open that mail, then there could be a problem with the employer’s opening personal and confidential mail without a legitimate reason.
If the mail has just the employee’s name and the address of the employer, that’s a fine line; that may be mail the employee is receiving in the course of his or her work. I get mail in my office all the time, and it’s all work related. If I’m not here, somebody else needs to open it and get back to people. In that case, there’s a legitimate reason to do that, and there’s not likely to be an expectation of privacy on the part of the employee.
Sandra Rappaport is a partner at the San Francisco office of law firm Hanson, Bridgett, Marcus, Vlahos & Rudy.