City Lawyer sacked for comments on YouTube

by Julie Bann

Many online newspapers picked up on the story of the apparent summary dismissal by a law firm Goldberg Segalla of its corporate partner, Clive O’Connell, for calling Liverpool football fans “Scouse scum”, in a tirade to a YouTube sports channel called Neeks Sports.

This is a clear example of the impact of social media. Mr O’Connell, a Chelsea fan, was daft enough to spill his wrath after the 3-1 drubbing of his team by Liverpool to someone with a microphone and a camera. This however could happen to anyone with the advent of recording facilities on every phone and the ability to upload videos to social sites such as You Tube. What you thought was banter between mates at a football match could be causing controversy within seconds. In this case, it didn’t take long for the story to be picked up by national news sites.  It then only took a matter of minutes to find other similar comments from Mr O’Connell.

While no employer can expect an employee to be an extension of its brand and representative of the company at all times in their social life, there has to be a balance in such cases. Taking into account the permanency of online records, that one off video and the ensuing link with Goldberg Segalla could be viewed on every internet search for information about the firm. If you also take into account his status as a partner in the firm, reputational damage is clearly foreseeable and therefore the dismissal was within the realms of a reasonable response.

It is important to judge each case on its own facts and assess misconduct through social media with the same level of reasonableness and fairness as you could any other aspect of misconduct.

If you have any questions, please contact a member of our Employment Team.