Stay Off Your Employees’ Private Twitter and Facebook Accounts

A case current pending in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois demonstrates the continuously evolving nature of social media in the workplace, and presents a warning to keep your employee’s social media accounts separate from the company’s.  In Maremont v. Susan Fredman Design Group, LTD., 1:10-cv-07811, the Director of Marketing, Public Relations and E-Commerce for an interior design company created a blog called “Designer Diaries: Tales from the Interior” that was hosted on her employer’s website.  She was well-known in the Chicago community of interior design and amassed a personal Twitter following of approximately 1,250 followers.  Additionally, she had a private Facebook page.  Both her Twitter and Facebook pages were not for the benefit of her employer, but they contained links to her blog and her employer’s website.  The passwords for both were stored on her employer’s computer.  After she was involved in a car accident, her employer used the stored passwords to access both her private Facebook and Twitter accounts to promote itself in her absence, even after she asked them to do it.  She later sued her employer under various state and federal statutes.  The case recently survived a motion to dismiss and is proceeding under the Lanham Act and the Stored Communications Act.  To the extent she can prove actual damages as a result of the use of the accounts, the employee may prevail.  Don’t “retweet” this mistake.