Legal Question in Employment Law in Massachusetts

Fired for Online Blog

One of my friends was recently fired from his grocery store job, for his internet blog/live journal. In his blog he often talked about funny things that happened at work. The post in question talked about a woman who wanted to talk to a manager after her son started crying because over the intercom one of the workers refered to the Yankees as the Evil Empire. Everything said in his entry was factual. A few weeks later someone reported his website to a manager and the manager suspended him for a week and sent the issue to Employee Services which handles punishments within the company. He was told that his blog entry was slandering the company. Is it just that he be fired for this? Are there any laws that can protect him?


Asked on 4/13/05, 1:51 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Evan Fray-Witzer Law Office of Evan Fray-Witzer

Re: Fired for Online Blog

No. Your friend is out of luck for two reasons. First, we are an at will state, so he can be fired for a good reason, bad reason, or no reason whatsoever. Second, even if we were not an at will state, people can legitimately be terminated for saying bad things about their employer. I'm not sure why, but people seem to think that the internet "doesn't count." If your friend had written this funny little article and published it in his hometown newspaper, would he have been surprised by the company's response?

So, bloggers beware -- People may actually read your blogs!

Evan

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Answered on 4/13/05, 2:10 pm


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