Deal V. Spears Case Summary

Week 7 Case Study: Deal v. Spears

HRMG 5700

December 8, 2013

Deal v. Spears Case Summary

This case is about a woman named Sibbie Deal that was employed at the White Oaks Package Store that operates as a liquor store located near Camden, Arkansas and it is owned and operated by Newell and Juanita Spears. She began to work at this store on December 31, 1989. Around April 21, 1990 the store was broken into and about $16,000 was stolen. The Spears were under the suspicion that it was an inside job and based on Mrs. Deal testimony they suspected she was directly involved in the theft. Hoping that Mrs. Deal admitted her involvement on the situation the Spears thought about using a recording device to monitor the telephone calls. At the deposition according to Mr. Spears he asked Mr. Cope the Sheriff Department Investigator about starting to record the calls and he said he did not see anything wrong by doing that. Once the device was installed and the conversations were monitored when Mrs. Spears was listening to a tape she found out that Mrs. Deal sold a keg of beer to Calvin Lucas which at the time they were having an extramarital affair at a discounted price violating the store policy. After Mrs. Deal came to work and the Spears played the incriminating tape which consequently got her fired.

Several weeks after the incident Mrs. Deal and Mr. Lucas filed an action causing the tapes and the recorder to be seized by a United States deputy marshal. The action was brought pursuant to the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 that it makes it unlawful for anyone to willfully intercept, use, or disclose any wire, oral, or electronic communication. The Spears claim that Mrs. Deal consented to the calls interception prior of happening. The plaintiffs believed their conversations were private because it was just mentioned that it could happen and the court found that they both had reasonable expectation that their conversations were private. The court found that Mr. and Mrs. Spears were liable for the plaintiff's damages for intentionally intercepting the phone conversations. The court ordered the Spears to pay for statutory damages for both Mrs. Deal and Mr. Lucas totaling $40, 000 and granted the request for attorney's fees. The court denied punitive damages for the Spears (Twomey, 2013).

Case Questions

1. It is not unlawful to monitor the telephone conversation of an employee if the employee has given prior consent. Did Deal give her employer consent in this case?

Under the Wiretap Act it is not illegal to intercept telephone conversations or other communications as long one of the parties has given prior consent therefore employers can monitor their employee's calls if consent is obtained in advance (Tschanz, 2012).

In this case the Spears told Mrs. Deal if she does not cut down on her personal phone calls they might install a pay phone or monitor the calls which is not giving the employee previous notice of when they will start recording the calls. It is not mentioned that

Mrs. Deal consented to these conditions of allowing her employer to record her personal conversations.