Court Orders Woman To Give Boss Access To Her Facebook Page

Be careful what you post on Facebook, you never know when the courts will order you to hand over access to your employer.

A flight attendant was forced to let her bosses examine her Facebook pages and bank accounts in a stoush over what she was up to on sick leave. Gina Kensington was sacked by Air New Zealand earlier this year following a dispute over sick leave she took to care for her sister.

Click to expand...

There must be more to this that meets the eye....Ive taken sick days when I wasn't sick and my boss knew it....I get X amount of PTO per year, and there is no rule that states I must be sick to use it..in fact, if I dont use it, i get paid for it at the end of the year...

and if they ever asked to see my Facebook, I would tell them to get bent ..I honestly cant believe a court granted that request

Crosshairs said:

There must be more to this that meets the eye....Ive taken sick days when I wasn't sick and my boss knew it....I get X amount of PTO per year, and there is no rule that states I must be sick to use it..in fact, if I dont use it, i get paid for it at the end of the year...

Click to expand...

Yeah, I'd definately like to know the rest of this story, although stories like this are often done this way. There is no benifit to the company to try this in the press, but possibly huge benifit to her, so she'll make the most of the publicity while the company wont say anything more then it needs to.

PTO is a new development that companies have started using to 1) avoid paying their employees for unused vacation days and 2) avoid having their employees use sick as vacation so that they are more likely to get more reimbursement under the 1) problem.

Some folks at my company have 1000+ hours of vacation built up because their departments routinely allow them to use sick as vacation.

if it's PTO (paid time off) then you are under no obligation to declare what you do. It's your annual allotted leave time and it's your own personal business.

If it is 'sick leave', then some companies can require you to disclose the justification.

Crosshairs said:

There must be more to this that meets the eye....Ive taken sick days when I wasn't sick and my boss knew it....I get X amount of PTO per year, and there is no rule that states I must be sick to use it..in fact, if I dont use it, i get paid for it at the end of the year...

and if they ever asked to see my Facebook, I would tell them to get bent ..I honestly cant believe a court granted that request

Click to expand...

PTO and sick days are different.

PTO is personal time off or paid time off. That is basically just a vacation day that can be used for what ever.

sick days are meant for that, when you are sick.

At my work if you are salary you get PTO, they don't care what you take the time off for, you just get X number of hours of time to take off for being sick or for vacation. If you are hourly they give you 1 week of sick time then your normal vacation time. Sick time is to be used only for that, if you are sick or if somebody you care for is sick (child, spouse..). If you want to take off to go fishing or go screw around, that is what your vacation time is for.

That said I do see this as being rather excessive asking for bank info and facebook account access, over this.

sick time can be used for wellness days too, (anything you want)

Keep in mind this is case in NZ where they may handle all the legal stuff differently.

It doesn't sound quite like the employer directly forced her to hand over the access, but more like the entity (Employment Relations Authority) that handles disputes cases like this basically said we can't pursue your case because we need evidence or we can't go any further.

If we ever get to the point where we can record everything you do. Then when a boss or someone else needs to find out what you were up to they can get a court order to tap the master database and see.

Its stuff like this that people get concerned about the NSA. Some people don't care but a time will come when everything you do gets recorded. And one day you're in a lawsuit, divorce anything. That info will bite you hard.

Exavior said:

PTO and sick days are different.

Click to expand...

terminology aside, at my job it makes no difference....I get 7 sick days a year....and I dont need to be sick to use them ..I call up and tell them I'm not coming in.....no questions asked

On many a Friday Ive told my boss I'm taking a sick day Monday because I had plans for an extended weekend....


I realize not all jobs are like this, I'm just relating how mine is

I haven't had a sick day in the last three years and took part in presenteeism (ill but sat at the cube and ralphed in the restroom, stayed). I also pick up people's work when they are sick because it can be divided.

But people should get more of these days, wellness, stay healthy, take a breath out of the office, whatever with mostly a laissez-faire approach... separate from the family vacation in the summer or day before/after Thanksgiving, etc.

I am sorry but this is one of those cases of business' trying to screw either employee's of taxes.

Companies every benefit to calculate your compensation, including possible sick time. If a company doesn't want employee's taking their full allotted time, then they shouldn't offer it. This is the second sick time battle I have heard about recently, and it is just plain stupid.

I don't know if they get tax breaks for offering larger compensation benefits or what, can't really understand why a company would fight so hard about use of sick days.

Moving to PTO time, removes all that non-sense which imo is a good thing.

Honestly in most cases like this the company wanted to fire the person and uses every rule in the book to justify it and protect themselves from law suit. I never have had problems like this, but have seen many a boss crack down on someone to either shape them up or ship them out.

Some places don't have a predefined number of sick days. I can use as many as I need without it docking my pay. I do have to show justification if I am out more than a day or two.

Delete posts about sick leave, done.

Getting a bit off topic I guess, but companies have gotten to be a pita about sick time since the economy was down. I guess if they can, they will.

My wife's employer has gotten so stingy with PTO, and employees are so paranoid about taking time off, that they are even bringing their sick kids in to lounge around the cubicle and yak in a restroom/trash can. They figure that's better than doing it the old fashioned way.

Awesome way to spread everything around for sure.

dandirk said:

Moving to PTO time, removes all that non-sense which imo is a good thing.

Click to expand...

Except when the last company I've worked at switched to PTO, they lowered the number total number of days. From 2 weeks vacation and 6 sick days, to 14 days PTO. Thier excuse was the average person only took 3 sick days, so we didn't need that many days,

The result of switching to PTO, meant that a lot of people started coming in when they where sick, since they didn't want to waste one of their PTO/vacation days. I was sick more often those 2 years than before or since.

Crosshairs said:

There must be more to this that meets the eye....Ive taken sick days when I wasn't sick and my boss knew it....I get X amount of PTO per year, and there is no rule that states I must be sick to use it..in fact, if I dont use it, i get paid for it at the end of the year...

and if they ever asked to see my Facebook, I would tell them to get bent ..I honestly cant believe a court granted that request

Click to expand...

While I don't think there's anything more to this... I seem to recall a guy on "sick leave" got fired when a story about him saving some kids from a shark on a beach went like wildfire over the internet. If someone gets sick leave, they should get sick leave, getting a mental break from work should be a perfectly viable "sickness" to count too. Granted there are jobs that require you not to be sick most the time, or push through it, hell me as a teacher I'm expected to not miss class even though I have enough sick leave banked to not teach for most of the year, but then I'm limited to 3 days off without a doctors excuse.

The whole Facebook & bank statement thing is just stupid. I would take a contempt of court and still refuse if it were me. You don't get to fucking look at my finances, you don't get to subpoena my friends for testimony over whether or not they saw pictures of me living it up (basically what being forced to showing your Facebook to your boss is doing).

Perhaps requiring a doctors verification over X amount of days is a better direction to go than demanding to see what you're posting to your friends.

She was sacked before they saw her bank records or FB info.

ie - Nobody fires good employees, they are hard to come by. She apparently gave them other indications.
Now she demands her job back by whining to the government. Her boss is making sure that the court sees it their way with concrete proof.

Don't be a dick to your employer. You might not like the outcome.

Reason #147,853 not to have a facebook !

Well this doesn't affect me at all since my sick days are unpaid and you can take as many as you want because it's your money to lose. Plus my employer never turns down requested sick days and I don't even have to talk to anyone to take one...just request it through an automated layoff system.

They never stated one fucking thing in that article about WHAT her facebook or bank records indicated. Was she 200 miles away renting a room and getting a massage? Was she out and about spending money on a shopping spree when she was supposed to be sick? IT DOESNT TELL US!

The problem with this is, if her employer thinks she is abusing her sick time they can most likely investigate for termination, her records however could be used to dispute this, which she didnt want out it seems. Im not sure why unless she was at fault.

Keep in mind, atleast in the usa.... there is NO LAW on the books which requires a doctor to provide you with a note for your employer. NONE.I dont give a shit if your employer REQUIRES you to provide one, if your doctor refuses too, they cannot take action against you as long as you were sick and paid a visit to the doctor. And yes, there are doctors who refuse to write doctors notes.

This came about over a formal inquiry/investigation, it's not a gateway to bosses being entitled to their employees facebook accounts. The allegations are essentially that the employee was defrauding the company (yes, lying about being sick is technically defrauding the company). I don't know how it works in New Zealand, whether sick days can be taken if you have to care for a family member. In the US, with most companies, sick leave is if you're sick. Other types of leave are designed for if your dependents are sick (or if someone calls on you for an emergency, etc.). Otherwise, you just have to take an unpaid day. If you get paid sick leave, but unpaid other leave and take a sick day so you don't lose pay, it's defrauding the company.

That being said, unless there is a facebook post that literally says "I'm ripping off my company, and I'm not sick," then I can't imagine they'll find much of use. You can post on facebook whether you're sick or well. I bet there are a lot of FB users who would post whilst on their death beds. I say unless you have someone who admitted to misusing sick leave, or if you have video evidence from a PI showing them misusing sick leave, then sack up and deal with your crappy system that is going to be exploited.

marcusj3000 said:

Well this doesn't affect me at all since my sick days are unpaid and you can take as many as you want because it's your money to lose. Plus my employer never turns down requested sick days and I don't even have to talk to anyone to take one...just request it through an automated layoff system.

Click to expand...

Working for a railroad I don't get "sick days" I can mark off (call off sick) when ever I want but... The company keeps track of it, so you can get burned for being off to much. Instead I get "Personal Days", basically payed days off (only get so many a year) but, they have to be a approved by a supervisor (Generally short noticed approval isn't an issue).

That's all on top of vacation as well (You start off with one week a year and it rises (I believe up to five after 10 or 15 years) as you progress in seniority).

SS_Wehrwolf said:

The problem with this is, if her employer thinks she is abusing her sick time they can most likely investigate for termination, her records however could be used to dispute this, which she didnt want out it seems. Im not sure why unless she was at fault..

Click to expand...

That's kind of the problem though. There are plenty of reasons to NOT want an employer perusing your Facebook page and bank records. Most of them have nothing to do with guilt.

I'm not using any illegal drugs, but it's probably not a coincidence that my worst employer ever was the one that insisted I randomly pee in a cup so I wouldn't endanger anyone while sitting in my cube.

brentsg said:

That's kind of the problem though. There are plenty of reasons to NOT want an employer perusing your Facebook page and bank records. Most of them have nothing to do with guilt.

I'm not using any illegal drugs, but it's probably not a coincidence that my worst employer ever was the one that insisted I randomly pee in a cup so I wouldn't endanger anyone while sitting in my cube.

Click to expand...

Not really. If you are accused of something and have the ability to defend yourself from wrongful termination, you have the option to do so. In this case, they terminated her based on a belief, that was not substantiated in court, that im aware of (the fucking article is so vague as to be nothing but sensationlist crap) but it was HER suit that wants her job back, and in so doing she has to bring evidence and also has to be forthcoming with anything the defendant requests in discovery. In this case, i think they were justifiable in requesting this information. Remember, they fired her, but SHE brought suit and made it into a legal dispute, thus forcing her to adhere to the way the law works for discovery and evidence. Her own stupidity has turned this into something its not.... the article itself is at fault for attempting to get clicks to the site about the story.

Dont look to much more into it than that until we SEE that the evidence they provide from facebook or her bank records backs up her claims.

If you post a picture on facebook, or anywhere else on the internet, you are a fucking idiot. GPS coordinates along with a time stamp are embedded within almost all photographs now a days taken with digital cameras. So if, as an example, she took a dump in atlantic city while she was out sick and snapped a photo to put on her facebook about how crappy the bathroom is... well... fucking idiot deserves to get whats coming to them. HOWEVER, if she took a dump in a restaurant 2 blocks from her house complaining about how crappy that bathroom was, the gps and timestamp would HELP HER in her defense. You can go out to eat when yer sick....and of course her bank records would also hurt or hinder her, so she SHOULD release them, UNLESS she has something to hide, or there was no way she should have filed suit to begin with. Being an idiot is not against the law, but the law will usually slap you in the face for being one.

While being sick or taking care of a sick person in of itself doesn't mean you can't be on Facebook, it is a matter of what you post that can be the issue. If you take sick leave to take care of a sick sibling for a week, the post pictures of you at local amusement parks or your day out on the beach then you aren't taking care of your sick sibling and are lying to your work. As said by others we don't I know enough to know why thy thought she was lying. But maybe a boss over heard her saying she went somewhere else, maybe somebody noticed she was home or around town when she was supposed to maybe be out of town. it is hard to know what happen for them to say she lied and why they decided to fire her. But it could be that Facebook could help or hurt her depending on what she had been posting, still doesn't change that having to give up such info sucks.

Lot of entitled people in here trying to defend someone that is more than likely defrauding a company. Sick time is sick time unless otherwise noted...its not for I have to have a day off after the big football game cuz I got blitzed crap. Somebody has to pick up the work for your slacking asses and there is enough legitimate sick time taken off to begin with.

bloodhawke83 said:

sick time can be used for wellness days too, (anything you want)

Click to expand...

That may or may not be true, as it depends on the sick time policy of your particular company. In the company I work for, if you take more than 2 sick days in a row, they have the right to ask for a doctors note that proved you were sick. In reality, "sick days" are not vacation or PTO. Your blanket assessment is not necessarily correct.

Private_Ops said:

Working for a railroad I don't get "sick days" I can mark off (call off sick) when ever I want but... The company keeps track of it, so you can get burned for being off to much. Instead I get "Personal Days", basically payed days off (only get so many a year) but, they have to be a approved by a supervisor (Generally short noticed approval isn't an issue).

That's all on top of vacation as well (You start off with one week a year and it rises (I believe up to five after 10 or 15 years) as you progress in seniority).

Click to expand...

Bingo as I work for a railroad as well so I don't have the problems traditional white collar or blue collar has with getting time off.