Does this section of my NDA state that my company could take legal action against me if I were compelled to testify against them? My companies NDA has this line Individuals shall not, directly or indirectly, disseminate, make available, disclose, or use any reason other than performance of their job with the Company, any confidential information or proprietary data of the Company, unless and only to the extent such release or disclosure is required by any court or administrative agency (and then only after prompt notice to the Company to permit the Company to seek a protective order). I can't help but think what that part in parenthesis means. If I were to for whatever reason be in court as a witness testifying against my employer, based on the NDA it sounds like any time a lawyer asked a question I'd have to defer to the my company to object to the question per the wording of the NDA. Similarly if I were subpoenaed for information regarding my company, I'd have to bring my employers lawyer along. Is this a correct interpretation? (It should be noted, this scenarios are theoretical, I don't know of anything I might get subpoenaed about)
The parenthesized part means that if you are being compelled by law to disclose some confidential information, you must promptly notify the company of that fact. They could they respond by trying to get you excluded as a witness, or to limit your testimony, but you don't have to care what they do once they've been notified that you were subpoenaed. It may well be that every time the opposing side asks you a question, "your" side will object, and the judge will decide whether to sustain or overrule the objection. The only way in which you would defer to the company lawyer is by not answering the question before the question is finished (i.e. give the attorney 2 seconds to voice an objection). You would not have to "bring" the employer's lawyer along to a deposition, but that lawyer would probably be present and would similarly raise objections, if he felt like it. Your duty is simply to tell the company that you are being compelled to testify. In case the police or a detective agency are investigating the matter and they come to interview you, you are not compelled by law to answer (or to hand over documents), therefore you are supposed to decline to answer (and you are not obligated to inform the company that someone asked a question). As for an administrative subpoena, the perhaps tricky part will be knowing whether you are being compelled to testify, or invited to testify. The wording of the paperwork should inform you whether this is compulsory.
Attorney-Client privilege is a one-way duty: The Attorney has to maintain protected information in confidence. It's a professional duty supported in law. There is no corresponding duty for the Client to maintain anything in confidence. The client can waive the privilege at will. Some sample limitations to waivers are governed by Federal Rule Evidence 502. (Granted, in this scenario the concerned board member may be bound by some confidentiality agreement or fiduciary obligation as a consequence of service on the board, or membership in the association, but that's a different matter.) The ABA points out , in its article "How to Lose Attorney-Client Privilege" that: Either voluntary or inadvertent disclosure to outside or non-covered recipients, professional advisors outside the privilege, and experts and consultants, can result in waiver as a matter of law. In this "Ten Things" article the author points out: Business advice, however, is never privileged and – for in-house counsel in particular – the line between the two can appear blurry. ... If a document that is otherwise privileged is shared with third parties, then the privilege is lost. ... A common misperception among the business is that all confidential information is privileged or if they label the communication as privileged they can keep the documents out of the hands of third parties. As we’ve seen, this is not correct and the fact that there is a non-disclosure agreement or other type of confidentiality agreement in place will not make a document privileged nor will it preserve the privilege if it is disclosed to a third party.
Depends on the specific terms in the NDA, but the short answer is that the News Services didn't sign the NDA, and have no contractual obligation to keep mum. Most NDA's I've signed or had others sign are very clear about the personal liability, and the conditions under which the proprietary intellectual property can be discussed. In the case of leaks, the injured party would have to identify the leaker, and that person would be liable. (Still a difficult proposition b/c most reporters won't give up sources unless you drag them in front of a Grand Jury, and often not even then.)
The real question isn't whether there is a law, but whether you want to keep your job. If you want to do something that you believe will affect your company negatively, and you ask whether it's legal or not, the question alone should show you it's a bad idea. And another question is whether you can be sued, and what it will cost you even if you can win a case, and the answers to that are "yes" and "a lot".
The question of whether a person was acting on their own behalf or that of a company would generally be a question of fact, so if such a case came to court it would be for both sides to present evidence and argue for their interpretation of it. In most cases the context makes it clear. You mention having a company email domain and associated email signature; that is certainly good practice and would go a long way towards creating a presumption that you were acting for a company. Also signing yourself with your job title or role (e.g. "Joe Bloggs, Chief Bottlewasher") makes it clear that you are speaking in your role as an employee. The content of the communication also matters; if you use your company email address to order goods from a supplier that the company has used before then the recipient can reasonably assume that you are ordering on behalf of the company and a court is likely to agree. OTOH if you use the company address to send libellous emails then the recipient would have a much higher bar to claim that this was the company view rather than a personal one.
Depends on the NDA Just like any other contract, it does what it says it does. You could draft the NDA either way.
It sounds like you've read about two party consent and public spaces. But while anyone can sue, it's winning a case that's relevant. "My client respects the applicant's beliefs, but choosing to express beliefs in such a way during a job interview indicated sufficiently questionable judgement that my client was unable to consider the applicant further for the advertised position." "It has also become apparent that the plaintiff was not acting in good faith in making an application for employment." Court finds for the defendant and orders the plaintiff to pay costs.
It is any law protecting me from the people that distrubute a video of me falling the stairs and shared without my permision? No. Your permission is not necessary for distributing or watching that video. The recording was from your workplace, where your entitlement to privacy is quite limited unlike few settings such as (1) your attorney's office in the course of obtaining legal advice for which the disclosure was needed, or (2) your home. Even if such an entitlement existed, your decision to share that recording with the person who was with you generally constitutes a waiver of your right to privacy regarding that incident. The waiver would apply even if California had some legislation akin to the EU's GDPR. Your description nowhere indicates that that person had a statutory or equitable duty of confidentiality. It is also highly doubtful that you would wish to block the distribution of the video if people instead of mocking you expressed something pleasant or encouraging to you. people who I don't even know their names come to me to comment about the video and joke about not falling again. That is not unlawful in and of itself. Since the matter does not involve a protected category such as sex, race, religion, or disability, pursuing a claim of hostile work environment would be quite a stretch. It would also be futile because any relief would not cover outsiders who watch the video and feel like joking about it. The notion of harassment entails a pattern of conduct (meaning that a person engages twice or more in that conduct) that causes a reasonable person to feel annoyed or concerned for his safety. Even if someone engages makes a few jokes that cause you to get annoyed, any petition for restraining orders seems unlikely to succeed. Sooner rather than later, the jokes will get old and people will move on.