OConnor vs.

Ortega1
Ponente: Justice OConnor (coincidence?)

March 31, 1987

SEARCHES AND SEIZURES

Facts:
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Respondent Dr. Ortega has been the Chief of Professional Education at Napa State Hospital for
17 years until 1981. As Chief, his role was to train young physicians.
In 1981, however, hospital staff including herein petitioner Dr. OConnor became concerned
about the various reports made against respondent, such as an inappropriate acquisition made for
work, various sexual harassment charges, etc. As such, on July 1981, petitioner asked respondent
to take a paid administrative leave while the charges were being investigated, which was later
turned into a two-week vacation through the insistence of respondent. On that duration though,
Dr. Ortega was instructed not to enter the hospitals premises at the pendency of said
investigation.
August 1981 and still the investigation was not yet done. Respondents two-week vacation
became a paid administrative leave, and it remained so until the termination of his employment in
September 1981.
Mr. Richard Friday, the hospital administrator, led the investigative team. At one point, they
entered into the office of respondent. The specific reason for their entry is unclear from the
evidence. Petitioners contend though that it was made in order to secure state property.
o At this point in time, respondent was still on paid admin leave, so petitioners contention
that the search was done in pursuit of hospital policy that enjoins a making of inventory
of state property of terminated employees.
o NO rule regarding inventory of not yet terminated employees.
o Petitioner Dr. Ortega contends that the purpose of the search was to secure evidence to be
used against respondent in disciplinary proceedings.
The search itself: thorough. Almost everything was sifted through; cabinets, desk, file cabinets,
etc. In the middle of the search, the team inside gave up trying to sort personal from state
property, and just dumped them into boxes.
Because of this alleged violation of his fourth-amendment right, respondent Dr. Ortega filed a
case against the petitioners, and the Federal District Court, upon motions for summary judgment,
found for respondent.
o Court of Appeals ninth circuit affirmed District Court ruling.

Issues/Held:
An individual does not lose his fourth amendment rights just because he works for the government
instead of private employers.

1 Guys, ginawa ko itong digest na ito around 3 am in the morning, so I cannot

guarantee quality. Im so sorry. Also, please read the dissent in the original.
Short lang siya pero much, much better than the ponencia. (Blackmun dissent,
joined by Brennan, Marshall and Stevens. Oha. Bigatin dissent niya.)

Majority rejects the said position of the SolGen and the petitioners regarding the impossibility of
the expectation of privacy in public offices.
However, the operational reality of the officework, however, makes some of these expectations
unreasonable; hence, an employees expectation of privacy in his desk, file cabinets, etc., is
reduced by virtue of actual office practice or procedure, or by office regulation.
This is rooted on the nature of the public office itself which is frequently accessed by fellow
employees, supervisors, etc. (hence, lessened expectation of privacy).
In the end, such expectation must be regarded on a case-to-case basis.

It is undisputable though that Dr. Ortega had a reasonable expectation of privacy with his desk and file
cabinets.
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Respondent did not share his desk with any other officemates; also, he has kept separate papers
and files for his job, and correspondence of his personal affairs (things he has kept inside the
office.)

Employees expectation of privacy must be balanced with the governments (as an employer) need for
supervision and control of its workspace: reasonableness standard.
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When the burden of obtaining a warrant is likely to frustrate the governmental purpose behind
that search, a warrant may not be appropriate.
The general view is that any work-related search is upheld as not a violation of the fourth
amendment rights.
o To be considered here is again the nature of the workplace: most employees need to enter
offices primarily to retrieve files for their work. Hence, it would be completely
unworkable if a warrant is needed for purposes of actual office work, or, as in this case,
the employers needed to separate private from state property pending investigation of an
employee.
Due to said circumstances, probable cause not applicable herethe correct standard should be
upon reasonableness of search.
o The only situations where this type of standard is to be used are: a. non-investigatory
work-related intrusion or b. investigatory search for evidence of suspected work-related
employee malfeasance.
o This is so because of the importance of public office to be efficient and the inefficiency
that the probable cause standard would require if the same is needed just to open an
office or to investigate work-related offenses.
o Investigation of work-related malfeasance is also an exercise of the duty of employers in
order to promote efficiency within the workplace. Probable cause requirement would be
intolerable upon the employers.
Balanced against the substantial government interest in the efficient and proper operation of a
workplace, the privacy interest of a governmental employee in their place of work, albeit not
insubstantial, is of lesser regard.
o If you want to keep a thing completely private, leave it at home.
Under the reasonableness standard, both the inception and the scope of intrusion must be
reasonable.
o Inception is reasonable when there are grounds for suspecting that the search will turn up
an evidence against the suspected employee, or is something needed for work.

Search is permissible in scope when the measures adopted were reasonably related to
the objective of the search and not successively intrusive in light of the nature of the
misconduct.

Because of facts resulting from the lack of evidentiary hearing, the case should be remanded back to the
lower court.
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There was still a dispute of fact; the two parties were still contending, for example, as to the
nature of the search itself. There was never a definite answer because the Court rendered a
summary judgment of the case. This is a mistake of the lower courts. On remand, the court must
determine under the reasonableness standard whether the search was valid in its inception, and
that the scope is reasonable.
The absence of policy of inventorying the properties of employees in administrative leave does
not necessarily render the search as invalid, given what was just discussed supra. A search to
secure state property is valid as long as petitioners had reasonable belief that there was
government property in respondents office which needed to be secure, and the scope of the
intrusion itself was reasonable in light of the justification.