In 2008, the New York Department of Labor suspected that its director of staff and organizational development, Michael Cunningham, had been skipping work and filing false time sheets to conceal his absences. The Office of Inspector General (OIG) was brought in to investigate. The OIG placed a GPS device on Cunningham’s personal vehicle without his knowledge, tracking his movements for one month, including nights, weekends, and a week-long, out-of-state vacation that he took with his family. Cunningham was later fired, largely on the basis of the evidence gathered from the GPS tracker, which showed that he had indeed been submitting fraudulent time cards. Cunningham sued, alleging that the Department of Labor’s warrantless use of the GPS monitoring device constituted a violation of state laws prohibiting unreasonable search and seizure. Was the use of the GPS device to monitor an employee under suspicion of wrongdoing legally justified in this case?
