Deal v. Spear

980 F.2d 1153 (8th Cir. 1992)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Ds operate the White Oak Package Store. They live in a mobile home adjacent to the store. The telephone in the store has an extension in the home and is the only phone line into either location. The same phone line is used for both the residential and the business phones. Deal (P) was an employee until she was fired in August 1990. The store was burglarized in April 1990 and approximately $16,000 was stolen. Ds believed that it was an inside job and suspected P. Ds purchased and installed a recording device on the extension phone in the mobile home. Ds told a sheriff's department investigator that he was considering this surreptitious monitoring and the investigator told Ds that they did not 'see anything wrong with that.' P, who was married to Mike Deal at the time, was having an extramarital affair with Calvin Lucas, then married to Pam Lucas. Deal and Lucas spoke on the telephone at the store frequently and for long periods of time while P was at work. Prior to Ds' purchase of the recorder, P was asked to cut down on her use of the phone for personal calls, and Ds told her they might resort to monitoring calls or installing a pay phone in order to curtail the abuse. D listened to virtually all twenty-two hours of the tapes he recorded. Ds did learn that Pl sold Lucas a keg of beer at cost, in violation of store policy. Ds played a few seconds of the incriminating tape and then fired her. Deal and Lucas (Ps) filed this action, and the tapes and recorder were seized by a United States deputy marshal pursuant to court order on September 3, 1990. Ps got the verdict and Ds appealed.