## Facts

- Hillsides, Inc., a nonprofit residential facility for abused and neglected children, employed Abigail Hernandez and Maria-Jose Lopez as daytime clerical workers sharing an enclosed office with blinds and a lockable door.
- The facility director, John M. Hitchcock, learned that an unknown person repeatedly used a computer in plaintiffs’ office late at night to view pornography online, contrary to policy and the facility’s mission.
- Hitchcock installed a hidden video camera in plaintiffs’ office aimed at the workstation used to access pornography; the system could be activated remotely for live viewing or recording.
- The camera was not operated during normal business hours, and plaintiffs were never actually viewed or recorded; Hitchcock did not intend to capture plaintiffs on video.
- Plaintiffs discovered the hidden camera and sued for invasion of privacy under (1) common-law intrusion upon seclusion and (2) the California Constitution’s privacy provision.

## Issues

1. Whether installing a hidden camera in employees’ enclosed office, operated only after hours and not capturing employees, constitutes actionable common-law intrusion upon seclusion.
2. Whether the same conduct violates the California constitutional right to privacy by intruding on a protected privacy interest in a manner sufficiently serious to be actionable.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of California reversed the Court of Appeal and reinstated summary judgment for defendants.
- The court assumed plaintiffs had an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in their enclosed office.
- Even if the hidden camera’s installation implicated privacy interests, the intrusion was not highly offensive or sufficiently serious, given the limited scope, after-hours operation, and lack of actual viewing or recording of plaintiffs.
- Defendants’ justification—protecting children and identifying the after-hours wrongdoer—supported the conclusion that the conduct did not amount to an egregious breach of social norms.

## Legal Principles

- Workplace ownership by an employer does not, by itself, defeat an employee’s reasonable expectation of privacy in an enclosed office setting.
- Common-law intrusion and California constitutional privacy claims require more than a technical or minimal interference; liability depends on an intrusion that is highly offensive and sufficiently serious in nature, scope, and impact.
- In assessing offensiveness/seriousness, courts consider the totality of circumstances, including the purpose for the intrusion, the narrowness of the surveillance, temporal limits, and actual impact on the plaintiffs.
- Secret video surveillance is not categorically permissible; broad, random, or continuous hidden monitoring may be actionable even where narrower, justified measures are not.

## Conclusion

The court held that employees may have a reasonable expectation of privacy in an enclosed workplace office, but an after-hours, narrowly targeted hidden camera installed to investigate misconduct and never used to observe or record the employees did not constitute a highly offensive or sufficiently serious invasion of privacy.


Hernandez v. Hillsides, Inc., 47 Cal. 4th 272 (Cal. 2009)