On March 30, 2010, the New Jersey Supreme Court held in Stengart v. Loving Care Agency, Inc. (No. A-16-09) that an employee who used her employer's laptop computer to send e-mail messages to and receive e-mails from her attorney had a reasonable expectation of privacy that was violated when her employer retrieved those messages from the computer hard drive and read them. The state high court also affirmed the lower court's ruling that the employer's attorneys violated the rules of professional conduct by reading the e-mails.
Is this a sign of things to come? What are the potential implications for: (a) employers; and (b) defense counsel?