Intellectual Property Law

Court rejects Facebook discrimination claim.

By Steve Cosentino

Evan Brown reportson an interesting discrimination claim involving Facebook.   In Jabbar v Travel Services, Inc., 2010 WL 3563112, (D. Puerto Rico, September 10, 2010) the court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendant in a client case involving a hostile workplace claim.  The plaintiff asserted that a discriminatory comment was posted by another employee in regards to a Facebook photo taken at a company event.  The court found that there were not sufficient facts to show who owned the Facebook account or regarding any company policy of uploading photos to the Facebook service.

Although the court ruled in favor of the employer, the negative implication of this is that discrimination involving social networking may present an issue for employers in the future where a company connection to Facebook accounts or posted images can be shown.  Obviously, comments from employees posted to Facebook are difficult, if not impossible, to police. 

Full post as published by The TechKnowledgy Blog on September 24, 2010 (boomark / email).