Comparative Privacy Law Project -

The purpose of this project is to analyze and compare various workplace privacy laws in the United States.

Students must analyze three (3) legal cases involving a privacy issue in the workplace from three (3) different states.  Examples of common privacy issues are drug-testing, employer monitoring of employees' computers, confidentiality of personnel or medical files, video or audio recording and employer intrusion into employees' workspace.

Ideally, each student should choose one issue and find how three states have decided the particular issue.  For example, how the courts have analyzed employee drug testing in Connecticut, Massachusetts and RI.  However, some state courts may not have addressed identical issues.  If a student is having difficulty finding an analysis of the same issue, then the student may analyze different issues although legal cases from three different states must be analyzed.

The analysis must be in "legal brief form".  "Briefing" is the method used by attorneys to summarize a legal decision and subsequently refer to it without having to reread the entire decision.  It is composed of four parts:

1. Citation: The parties involved, the court and date;

2. Facts: A summary of the pertinent facts of the case that gave rise to the issue.

3. Holding: What the court decided.

4. Reasoning: Why the court decided the way it did.  Describing the legal reasoning the court used and how the court applied the law to the particular facts.   

At the end of each brief, the student should explain how the decision could be applied to workplace policies in no more than one or two sentences. For example:

Professional Pointer: Medical records should be kept separately from personnel files and shown on a need to know basis.

Each student is required to submit three briefs, totaling no more than eight (8) pages, as well as be prepared to explain and discuss the cases in class.  An example of a legal brief is located in the course file.

Attachment:- Sample.rar