Help wanted: Can preschool open laid-off teacher's cards and gifts?

DEAR CARRIE: After working for a preschool for many years, I was advised that I wouldn't have a job in September. The reasons were as varied as the directors I spoke to, and included some complaints from parents. At the end of the semester, after word started to get around, a few other parents who liked me began to ask me if I would be returning to the school in September. I told them no.

In the meantime, the school told me that my pay would be withheld until I returned my keys. I sent my husband to turn them in. The school told him it would send someone to our house to drop off my final check and the gifts.

He said the person could get the keys then. No one showed, and after a while the check was mailed to me. So I went to the school to resolve the key issue. After I turned in the keys, I was handed a garbage bag with my personal belongings.

Inside the bag I found gifts, cards and notes from students and their parents -- all opened. Someone had opened the items even though they were all sealed and addressed to me. And some of the envelopes were empty. I cannot believe that school employees had any legal right to go through items sealed and addressed to me. Am I wrong? -- Privacy violated?

 DEAR PRIVACY: Despite the outrageousness of your situation, you may have just limited protection in your privacy concerns. But an issue you didn't raise could pose a problem for the school -- whether it handled your final pay legally.

As for the privacy issue, "Your ability to seek legal redress for the opening of your gifts and cards is problematic," said attorney Carmelo Grimaldi, a partner at Meltzer, Lippe, Goldstein & Breitstone in Mineola. "There is no general federal law pertaining to employee privacy in the workplace. And privacy protections vary from state to state."

And to make matters even more complex, this is an evolving area of law, given recent advances in video and camera surveillance and telecommunications, such as e-mails, he said.

Some federal and state laws do protect employees' privacy in the workplace, but they aren't broad enough to apply to your situation.

For example, the U.S. Constitution's Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures does provide workplace protection but is not applicable to private-sector employers, Grimaldi said.

In New York, limited statutory rights of privacy do exist, such as New York civil rights statutes that prohibit the use of a person's name, portrait or picture for advertising or trade purposes, he said, and the state labor law that prohibits video recording in certain private areas in the workplace such as a rest room, and the state labor law that directs employers to safeguard employee Social Security numbers and other identity information.

"None of these statutes are applicable to your situation," he said.

School officials may argue that they were justified in opening the parents' envelopes to determine whether they dealt with school or student-related issues, he said.

"This is especially true if the school promulgated a policy on workplace searches," he said. "However, if gifts and other personal items intended for you and unrelated to the school/students were taken, a potential criminal charge exists -- as well as a civil action" for missing items, he said.

Your school's handling of your final paycheck may have violated state labor laws, Grimaldi said.

According to the State Labor Department's website, "When employment has been terminated, the employer must pay the wages by the regular payday for the pay period worked."

Tying the check to delivery of the keys may have illegally delayed your pay.

Click here for more on frequency of wage payments at  www.labor.ny.gov/workerprotection/laborstandards/faq.shtm#15

Or call the New York State Labor Department at 516-794-8195 or 212-775-3880.