It could be. Court cases have made it abundantly clear that employers have legitimate grounds to discipline employees for harmful posts about a company on social media even if they post them after work and from home. But to justify discipline, you need: 1. A clear Social Media Use Policy banning such posts; and 2. A really harmful post. The question of whether a negative review on a site like Glassdoor crosses the line is a close one, especially if the review was honest, anonymous and doesn’t say nasty stuff about a particular manager, supervisor, employee, customer or other individual.
There was recently a case in Quebec where a company WAS allowed to collect damages from an ex-employee for trashing the company on an employer review site. The case involved a former employee who violated an anti-disparagement clause in her release rather than an active employee who violated an HR policy, but the same principles would apply. Here’s our write-up of the case and a link if you want to read it.
3. Employee Must Pay $11K for Trashing Ex-Employer on Website
A software firm claimed that the highly negative review an ex-employee posted anonymously on the RateMyEmployer.ca website violated the non-disparagement clause of her severance release. The employee claimed the clause was unenforceable and violated her freedom of expression. The court sided with the employer. In promising not to say anything negative about the firm and receiving consideration, i.e., something of value for doing so, the employee waived her expression rights. Result: She had to pay the company $10,000 for “moral prejudice” and $1,000 in exemplary damages for violating her agreement [Digital Shape Technologies Inc. c. Walker, 2018 QCCS 4374 (CanLII), Oct. 9, 2018].
Hope that helps. Glenn
