Judges Rule Google Search by Employer Not Illegal

An anonymous reader passed us a link to an Ars Technica article about a failed lawsuit over a Google search. A federal circuit court of appeals has upheld the original ruling against David Mullins, who claimed that Googling his name constituted ex parte communications prior to firing him. "Through a series of events, Mullins' employer found that he had misused his government vehicle and government funds for his own purposes — such as sleeping in his car and falsifying hotel documents to receive reimbursements, withdrawing unauthorized amounts of cash from the company card, and traveling to destinations sometimes hundreds of miles away from where he was supposed to be ... Mullins' supervisor provided a 23-page document listing 102 separate instances of misconduct. Mullins took issue with a Google search that Capell performed just before authorizing his firing. During this Google search, Capell found that Mullins had been fired from his previous job at the Smithsonian Institution and had been removed from Federal Service by the Air Force."

Re:This is bullshit

[svendsen]

While I agree with the firing/hiting and double taxation I disagree with unemployment. My story:

Working for a company in the UK (only 40 people os nice and small), they partnered with a University in the states to develop software for phase 2 to 3 clinical drug trials. The University wanted someone on site to do business requirements, training, writing documentation, UAT, support and installation. I got the job. Pretty slick, own suite, at the customer site in an Academia settings 10 mins form where I lived.

So for the first year things are going ok, turns out sr. mgmt. had made lots of promises before I was hired and now the developers and I were taking flak for things we had zero control over. But still the directors of this part of the university where very impressed with me and told me so. We had a very strong working relationship.

Of course it blew up. What happened well some of my company's board of directors told the clients board of directors they were going to rewrite the contract, charge more, a few days before the contract was going to be signed. The customer was pissed. So pissed in fact that come last August the University said I could no longer continue the business requirements phase of the next project I was doing for the, (aka no talking to university employees about the project, anything else was fine). Again the customers board of directors, Scott your work is top notch, just your company's BOD has done a shitty thing, we are trying to work it out.

2 months later we get a new CEO who decides he doesn't want to enter this market and focus in on another area. So he tells the customer sorry the BOD dicked you over, we have to end this relationship, shut down the office and end of Nov. my job is done with one month of severance.

So lets recap so far I did an awesome job, personal references all the directors from one of the biggest academia reading centers for clinical drug trials, personal references from my company's BOD (though not all I wanted especially the ones that caused this shit storm), and yet for 0 fault of my own I have no job. Oh the people who caused this mess still have jobs.

So here I am trying to find a job during the holidays (ya good luck with that), well this turns into mid January no job. I finally get a job offer end of Jan. they want to know right away. I need a few more days for personal family issues, oops to bad rescinded the offer. WTF? Cause I have personal family issues you cant give me a few days? Shows I wasn't "serious" ...ya right.

Few more months pass, fiancé gets a job out of state I follow and now doing contract work. Have 4 months of where no money came in. Least there will be unemployment money to help me out to offset the cost.

Which is why when you do unemployment they ask you why you left your last job. If you get fired for incompetence, drug use, etc. it makes it a lot harder to get if any at all. If you are fired because you get a great job (again when you have personal references from all the directors most being very well published doctors) but your BOD fucked you over you get the money.

I'd have a nice big dent in my savings if it weren't for unemployment. Getting fired during the holidays isn't easy to find a new job everyone is on vacation. So tell me what else could I have done? Can't sure the BOD members who screwed up, can't sue the company for dicking me over, since I can't do that at least I have some assistance to fall back on.

Google searches BY JUDGES ruled ok, sort of

[ubuwalker31]

When working for the government as a permanent employee, you are usually entitled to a full and fair hearing, with an attorney, before your boss, who is acting as a pseudo-judge (the deciding official). Thus, in order for the hearing to be fair, the deciding official must not go outside the bounds of admissible evidence when deciding the case. Remember, evidence of prior bad acts is generally inadmissible in court!

From the decision [emphasis mine]:

"No ex-parte communication occurred when the Deciding Official, Ms. Capell, discovered for herself that "in 1996, the Department of the Air Force removed the appellant from a civil service position and that in 1997, the Smithsonian Institution told [Mr. Mullins] to 'look for a new job.'" Indeed, the only "communication" that occurred was when Mr. Mullins communicated with Ms. Capell to bring to her attention the negative information about himself "by suggesting he had been subject to Board proceedings before." Ex-parte communications are procedural defects only when they cause prejudice that undermines due process guarantees. Because Mr. Mullins' two prior job losses did not affect Ms. Capell's decision to remove Mr. Mullins, the record shows no prejudice. Indeed, on April 22, 2005, before Ms. Capell discovered Mr. Mullins' two prior job losses, Mr. Grahl had already outlined 102 specifications to support the four charges of misuse and misconduct against Mr. Mullins."

Re:Employers usually do a search before hiring.

[Bob-taro]

I wouldn't even be surprised if there were companies which specialize in revenge, where you can google bomb someone's name and associate it with something unpleasant for a fee.

There is, I saw it on Dr. Phil. A woman had a website offering various services to get revenge on ex-boyfriends/ex-husbands. IIRC, putting damaging information about them (true or untrue) on the web was one of the tactics.

Re:Government jobs

[Lijemo]

The (very specific) regulation he claimed was violated applied only to government jobs, not to private sector. So no, it clearly wouldn't have.

Re:Does that mean

[Aaron Denney]

had quite a sorted professional and personal past

Sorted: all in order.
Sordid: dirty, immoral.

Re:This is bullshit

[Dragonslicer]

An employer should be able to hire/fire anyone they want without having to go through a bunch of red tape.

In most states in the United States, they can, other than for a specifically defined list of discriminatory reasons, such as race, gender, and age.

Unemployment Tax

[dereference]

And if you are a person who doesn't agree with unemployment then lower the taxes a lot first. My last pay check 33% want to taxes. So I work almost two days a week to pay taxes. Now if that was much lower I could save more and in down times wouldn't be as big of an issue

Just a quick clarification: In the US, unemployment taxes are paid exclusively by the employer; they are never deducted from the employee's pay. I realize that this may mean that employers simply pay you a slightly lower gross salary to off-set it, but it's definitely not part of the 33% (or whatever) you saw as a deduction from your check; it would be illegal for them to do so.