In a landmark decision, California’s Supreme Court held that two women who were not involved in a workplace affair had grounds to sue because the women who were having affairs with the boss received preferential treatment.

Prison and party don’t normally go together in my mind. But after reading about the workplace where the harassment took place, California’s Valley State Prison for Women, I’ll have to think again about what goes on behind those guard gates and razor wire.

Let me explain. Two Valley State women employees sued because they claimed that the warden promoted women who he was romantically involved with over women who were not sleeping with him. This is where the case gets interesting. The warden wasn’t having one affair. He wasn’t sleeping with two women at the same time. He managed to maintain THREE concurrent affairs. Actually the CNN description didn’t even stop there; its report said that he had “at least” three affairs.

This guy gives new meaning to the phrase “working around the clock.” I’m a guy and the thought of maintaining three affairs just wears me out. Then again, just being a warden, I thought, would manage to occupy your full attention too.

This case also is a great example of the law of “unintended consequences.” This is where we are so focused on what we are doing, that we fail to see its unintended results on the people around us. After reading much of the commentary surrounding this decision, there was a common thread that this case would obviously be overturned by the right coast Supreme Court (isn’t it interesting how the coast of both so completely aligns with their political affiliations?).

Whether the case is overturned or not, it clearly shows the danger of putting all your eggs in the workplace basket. Many of us spend a huge amount of time at work, we make all of our friends at work, we derive most of the meaning for our lives from work and yes, we often date the people at work.

This case points out that our actions, especially dating, can have an impact far beyond us. It’s like when you throw a rock into a calm lake and the wake generated flows in all directions. Relationships not only make work complicated for the people involved, it makes things complicated for everyone that they come into contact with.

What’s so ironic is that so many people seem to think that they are like Casper the Friendly Ghost at work—invisible. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is only one workplace dogma that I believe—no one can keep a secret indefinitely at work. And if you are a boss, well the odds go down even further. Because, whether you like it or not, every person who works for you is always watching everything that you do or say.

So according to the California Supreme Court, if you are a supervisor who dates at work, don’t be surprised if you are suddenly greeted by an orgy of lawsuits.

About the Author: Bob Rosner is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist. For free job and work advice, check out the award-winning workplace911.com. If you have a question for Bob, contact him via bob@workplace911.com.

This article originally appeared in My Employment Lawyer on November 8, 2009. Reprinted with permission from the author.

One of the powerful but also somewhat underused claims that employees who are falsely accused of any kind of misconduct at workplace have is a claim for defamation (libel and slander). Proving a defamation claim in court has it’s own unique challenges, but the law imposes significant liability for making false statements that injure one’s professional reputation as it has been recognizing the harm that defamatory language can make to one’s professional career.

One of the great California Supreme Court cases on the issue of defamation in a professional setting is Slaughter v. Friedman 32 Cal.3d 149 (1982). In that case, an oral surgeon brought a libel lawsuit against a private medical insurance company. The surgeon submitted a claim for certain dental services he provided to one of his patients, which was denied and which was accompanied with the letter that was cc’ed to his patients, and stating that the dental work done was “unnecessary” and that the surgeon was “overcharging.”

The Court began its analysis with reiterating the well established principle of the broad reach of the defamation claim: libel includes almost any language which, upon its face, has a natural tendency to injure a person’s reputation.

The defendant insurance company persuasively argued that the term “unnecessary” cannot be consider libel because it’s a statement of opinion and not fact (to be actionable, a defamatory statement must be a statement of “fact.”) The Court disagreed and drew an interesting distinction, holding that although accusations of “unnecessary” work when made by laymen might indeed be mere opinions, similar accusations by professional dental plan administrators carry a ring of authenticity and reasonably might be understood as being based on fact.

This decision is a significant note of caution to professional entities who render and publish their opinions about someone’s qualifications or quality work, as those opinions might be considered by courts as statements of facts because of the professional authority of the source of that publication.

About the Author: Arkady Itkin is a California Employment and Injury Attorney representing employee, small businesses, and injured persons in San Francisco, Sacramento, and surrounding counties in Northern California. He is a member of San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association, California Employment Lawyers Association and the Association of Consumer Attorneys of California. Arkady’s website is www.arkadylaw.com.