We don't blog much about Minnesota. In fact, before this post we had as many posts tagged Milwaukee as we do Minnesota. I won't speak for Mr. Torvik, but one reason that I don't blog about Minnesota much is that I generally feel like the folks at Minnesota Litigator have the ground covered.
That said, I did have a thought about this recent Minnesota Litigator post. The post concerns a recent discovery order in a sexual harassment case. The plaintiff's computer forensics expert was allowed to examine the alleged harasser's work computer and discovered that the alleged harasser spent a lot of time during working hours looking at pornographic websites on his work computer. I assume that this information is relevant to the sex harassment claim because the employer is not involved in the pornography business.
I do not consider myself naive and this isn't the first time that I have heard of this sort of activity. I once attended a deposition where the printouts of the thumbnails for the number of pornographic websites an individual looked at work ran to over 400 pages. However, every time I hear about something like this I ask myself what kind of an idiot looks at this stuff at work. Setting aside any moral issues one might have with pornography, why would anyone think that these are the sort of websites one should look at at work? Why would anyone think such behaviour was a good idea?
Mr. Torvik, do you have any desire to perform a feat of zealous advocacy and give our readers a good reason to look at Internet porn at work?
Whoa, I was really worried where you going with your question when you started "Mr. Torvik, do you have any desire to perform a feat of zealous . . ."
ReplyDeleteBut I will attempt to answer your question. There is no real "good reason" to look at Internet porn at work. But people do lots of things—at work and elsewhere—that there was no good reason to do. I call these "mistakes."
I have found in my travels as the facts unravel that human beings are particularly prone to make these so-called mistakes in matters involving sexual urges. It is almost as though a person's sexual urges are not completely rational.
I do not regularly look at Internet porn while at work. I do however make certain kinds of mistakes that I can publicly admit make me somewhat sympathetic to the workaday wankers of the world. Namely, I often black out and find myself standing in front of the pantry, with a bag of potato chips in my hand, a handful of potato chips in my other hand, two handfuls in my mouth, and twelve in my stomach. And I say to myself, "How did I get here?"
I point this out as a kind of mindless, impulsive activity that I know is suboptimal but which I continue to do. I imagine that the activity you describe in your post is similar.