As I read Vicomte's post, it had nothing to do with state law. It had to do with activist judges creating new causes of action against employers out of thin air, regardless of whether or not there is a law on the books.
I'm scratching my head to figure out why some apparently consider that a conservative position....
"As I read Vicomte's post, it had nothing to do with state law. It had to do with activist judges creating new causes of action against employers out of thin air, regardless of whether or not there is a law on the books."
What I said does have to do with state law.
29 states have passed laws that specifically prohibit employers from doing this sort of thing.
Michigan is not among them, but there may be existing precepts of Michigan law, existing court cases and interpretations of employment contracts up there that make what the employer has done here suspect.
Remember, the Common Law, which we so often praise, has never been primarily made by legislatures but by judges applying general principles of law to a specific case. The whole law of contracts started out as judge-made law. It still hasn't been codified in many respects.
I am not looking to create new causes of action out of thin air. What I am doing is trying to figure out a reasonable conservative response to something outrageous that an employer has done that has Michigan all abuzz, and has now hit the national airwaves as well.
Among those 21 states that don't have specific laws protecting private life from employer intrusion, there probably will be some that pass such laws based on this particular incident, if it continues to get press coverage and other employers follow suit.
I don't think that states deciding democratically to pass laws or not is a conservative or liberal issue - the content of the law determines that. Whether it's the state that passes the law, or the feds is, I think, a federalist/conservative issue. And I would expect conservatives and federalists to think that this ought to be left to the states to decide, and not think it outrageous that 29 states have decided that this sort of employer over-reach is for the birds.
Perhaps the best solution would be for the people of Michigan to get agitated enough about this to pass a law shielding private life from employer retaliation before any sort of legal action against the employer gets underway. In this way the legislature can make the law and not leave it up to the courts.