Two former Neiman Marcus loss prevention investigators who were fired from Neiman Marcus in October 2007 for having sex on the job are suing the company for illegally videotaping them.

Q. Recently, an employee left our company to join a competitor. When we took a look at his computer, we found deleted e-mails and files indicating he downloaded some valuable information about our customers. We suspect he transferred it to our competitor. He was an at-will employee and we had no employment agreement with him. Is there anything we can do about this?

Q. We just hired a salesperson from a competitor. We warned her not to take proprietary information from her former employer, but she says what is on her personal laptop is her information. Is there any risk for us from that laptop?

Many of the millions who post information online never think a potential employer might read what they post. Meanwhile, employers believe that if the information is available online for the viewing, they have an obligation to look. However, several laws may restrict how you conduct the search or how you use the information.

Employees may think of “their” desks as their own private domains—safe places to keep their own things literally under lock and key. However, employers do have the right to open that locked drawer. When the desk is in an open area shared with other employees, the employee with the key doesn’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Q. We discovered that an employee has posted false, profane statements about our company and managers on his Facebook page. What can we do? ...

Q. As an employer, what can I do to avoid unauthorized disclosure of sensitive company information when an employee departs?

When you conduct an internal investigation, other employees involved in the investigation are going to figure out what the allegations are. But you don’t have to worry about a defamation lawsuit following the investigation if you strive to keep the matter confidential ...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has vetoed a bill that would have allowed California farm workers to seek union representation using a card-check system that was opposed by the farming industry. Although the California Assembly and Senate passed the legislation after a summer of wrangling over details, Schwarzenegger spiked the bill ...

A temporary employment agency violated federal labor law by including a confidentiality provision in an employment contract, according to a recent NLRB ruling (Northeastern Land Services, Ltd. dba The NLS Group and Jamison John Dupuy, 352 NLRB No. 89, 2008). In the case, the agency fired a worker for violating the confidentiality provision ...

Exercise extreme caution when terminating employees with knowledge of your IT systems. More than eight in 10 IT security professionals admitted that, if laid off tomorrow, they’d take valuable and sensitive company information with them, according to a new Cyber-Ark Software survey of 300 IT pros ...

Good news if you work for a public employer in Florida. If you make an FMLA mistake, you can’t be sued individually, unlike your peers in the private sector ...

Q. I have been asked to screen applicants for several positions. Can we lawfully ask selected candidates to submit to physical exams or drug testing? ...

Three former employees of Metaldyne Corp. in Plymouth have pleaded guilty to plotting to steal trade secrets and sell them to industry competitor Chongqing Huafu Industry Co. of Chongqing, China ...

Five women are suing Dr. Vincent Pacienza, claiming the Long Island cardiologist used a camera hidden inside an air freshener to spy on them when they used the office bathroom ...