Fed. Electronics Comm. Privacy Act v SC State Comm. Laws

In Ducharme v. Madewell Concrete, LLC, No. 6:20-1620-HMH, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 127615 (D.S.C. July 17, 2020), Defendants Madewell Concrete, LLC and Kevin Johnston’s (“Johnston”) (collectively, “Defendants”) movement to dismiss Plaintiff Robert Ducharme’s (“Plaintiff”) South Carolina Homeland Safety Act (“SCHSA”) declare pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Process 12(b)(6) was denied.

Plaintiff alleges that Defendants intentionally misclassified him as a salaried worker, which exempted him from the time beyond regulation necessities of the Honest Labor Requirements Act (“FLSA”). Accordingly, Plaintiff contends that he was not compensated for his time beyond regulation work. Plaintiff additionally alleges that Defendant Johnston illegally and with out authorization accessed Plaintiff’s private electronic mail account.

Plaintiff’s lawsuit alleges three claims: violations of (1) the Saved Communications Act, (2) the SCHSA, and (3) the FLSA.

Defendants argue that Plaintiff’s SCHSA declare is preempted by the Digital Communications Privateness Act (“ECPA”) as a result of in 18 U.S.C. § 2518(10)(c), “Congress expressed clear intent that any alleged interception of any ‘digital communications’ falls below the unique treatment of the [ECPA].” Accordingly, the Courtroom describes the dispute as whether or not “the interception of digital communications provisions of the ECPA preempt a declare primarily based on the interception of digital communications provisions of the SCHSA.”

In holding that § 2518(10)(c) doesn’t expressly preempt state legislation claims, the Courtroom famous that “Congress may have simply and explicitly acknowledged that the treatments within the ECPA are the unique treatments for all interceptions of digital communications or that the ECPA preempts state legislation claims, however it didn’t accomplish that.” The Courtroom went on to seek out that the legislative historical past of § 2518(10)(c) signifies that “the interceptions of digital communications weren’t topic to the exclusionary rule absent a Fourth Modification violation.” Thus, state legislation treatments are permissible for sure intercepts of digital communications (similar to private emails) and “the ECPA doesn’t preempt Plaintiff’s declare below the SCHSA. This case is an effective reminder that employers needs to be conscious to make sure compliance with relevant state privateness legal guidelines, along with the well-known federal ones.