Emails Can Get You Fired

Just ask Lynne Bray, a Seattle resident who sued her former employer for wrongful termination.  She tried to use all kinds of excuses in court blaming her former employer, King County, for getting rid of her-  She claimed she was sick; always having diarrhea.  She said she was disabled with a back injury.  She was depressed.  She even played the Lesbian card.

The judge didn’t buy it.

From CNET here:

A longtime county bureaucrat whose ex-girlfriend turned her in for excessive use of personal e-mail has lost a lawsuit claiming she was fired unjustly.

Lynne Bray, who assigned work to road crews for Washington state’s King County, was reprimanded in July 2003 for being customarily late for work. She claimed she was being treated for depression and irritable bowel syndrome, a disorder marked by constipation and diarrhea.

But what seems to have led to Bray’s termination after 12 years as a county bureaucrat was a citizen complaint from her former girlfriend, Jennifer Bond, saying that she was using the county computer for private e-mail messages. Bond also reported that her ex visited her (driving a county vehicle, of course) and drank beer during work hours when she was supposedly on duty.

At one point, county records showed, Bray sent or received over 50 personal emails during a three-hour period on April 16, 2003 — when, again, she was supposedly on duty. Some of those included “profanities,” barred by King County’s employment policies.

Bray sued the county two years after she was fired. She claimed she was unlawfully fired for her disability–apparently a back problem, not her irritable bowels–and because she was a lesbian.

U.S. District Judge James Robart didn’t buy it. In a ruling on July 22, he effectively tossed out Bray’s lawsuit by granting summary judgment to the county.

It also goes to show that you don’t piss off some lesbian ex-lovers.  Hell hath no fury…..