# Ethical dilemma - co-worker's legal troubles **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 10, 2014, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-dilemma-co-workers-legal-troubles/706845 "2014-12-10T13:30:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-dilemma-co-workers-legal-troubles/706845/21 "2014-12-10T19:17:01Z")
Is this person’s history of brushes with the law actually affecting his work performance? If not, I consider it like out-of-the-office drug use - it’s none of your damn business, shut your mouth, and stop looking for dirt. > [@Ethilrist](#): > > (a) Is that a management responsibility of yours? If not, it’s literally none of your business. If he passed the company’s background check without lying, then that’s the company’s business and how they choose to run it. If his current employment status is OK with the company, then he has done nothing wrong by their standards… This. It’s probably not your responsibility to second-guess management’s decisions here. Do your job, not someone else’s. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-dilemma-co-workers-legal-troubles/706845/22 "2014-12-10T20:32:01Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > Is this person’s history of brushes with the law actually affecting his work performance? If not, I consider it like out-of-the-office drug use - it’s none of your damn business, shut your mouth, and stop looking for dirt. I feel like everybody’s intentionally overlooking when I say this, but the guy may be going to jail in a couple of months according to the state of XYZ, and if/when he does, I inherit his poorly managed workload (on top of my own large workload). If he gets fired before that, the same thing happens to me. Basically I’m screwed unless he gets a fairly lenient judge, but the domestic violence statutes in that state are not very forgiving toward guys who assault their wives more than once. So, I guess I’m screwed in either case, time to move on. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-dilemma-co-workers-legal-troubles/706845/23 "2014-12-10T21:03:45Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > I feel like everybody’s intentionally overlooking when I say this, but the guy may be going to jail in a couple of months according to the state of XYZ, and if/when he does, I inherit his poorly managed workload (on top of my own large workload). If he gets fired before that, the same thing happens to me. I feel this would cause me to bring it to my boss’ attention, especially if I had a good relationship with my boss. You’d have to be careful about how you present it, but something along the lines of “I’ve discovered that X is in legal trouble and it could affect his ability to work. Are there contingency plans we can put in place to help manage the situation.” You don’t need to mention how you came across this information, it’s publicly available and how you discovered it is irrelevant. My job is all about managing risk and creating contingency plans, so I tend to view all this with that filter. ---
**Author:** ![Zorkmid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e68b1a/32.png) [@Zorkmid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zorkmid)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-dilemma-co-workers-legal-troubles/706845/24 "2014-12-10T21:08:31Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Basically I’m screwed unless he gets a fairly lenient judge, but the domestic violence statutes in that state are not very forgiving toward guys who assault their wives more than once. > > So, I guess I’m screwed in either case, time to move on. So it would be OK for him to get away with being a repeat abuser as long as you don’t get the extra work dumped on you? :eek: Sorry, but it’s really, really hard not to read that post that way. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-dilemma-co-workers-legal-troubles/706845/25 "2014-12-10T21:15:43Z")
Keep silent, watch it happen, act shocked. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-dilemma-co-workers-legal-troubles/706845/26 "2014-12-10T21:32:49Z")
> [@Zorkmid](#): > > So it would be OK for him to get away with being a repeat abuser as long as you don’t get the extra work dumped on you? :eek: Sorry, but it’s really, really hard not to read that post that way. That was just to answer the 99% of people who ask (appropriately) why I even stuck my nose into this. It has an effect on me. If it didn’t, sure, the Municipal Court Judge gets to decide what he gets away with… you expect me to go on a vendetta and ruin the guy if he gets a light sentence? ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-dilemma-co-workers-legal-troubles/706845/27 "2014-12-10T23:27:34Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Recently I have become aware that a co-worker of mine has a history of brushes with the law, and is presently facing a case for which he may actually serve jail time. > > My dilemma is whether I should disclose this to my employer. The impact to us is that he may leave us in the lurch if/when he goes to jail. Also I personally feel creeped out by his criminal history and am uncomfortable working with him. His last 3 cases have been domestic violence… one currently pending, one dismissed without prejudice, one conviction (this is the past 5 years). Previous to that is a list of non-violent offenses… suffice to say he seems to believe that rules are for other people. If your job involves classified information, you could very well be required to disclose any information you have about another employee that would make him a poor risk for this (google “adverse information”). There may be other job categories that place similar requirements on employees. A review of your job’s employee manual (or a discreet chat with HR) might tell you what you are required to do. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-dilemma-co-workers-legal-troubles/706845/28 "2014-12-10T23:28:40Z")
If you’re overloaded and you’d get his work dumped on you if anything happens, \*that \*is something actionable with your management. He could get the flu. Or quit. Or you could. Or some third person in your area could. That would affect department productivity. You also seem to be saying he does crappy work. Which may or may not affect your ability to do your work now, or after. _These_ are legit topics for you to take to management. What are our plans? how much redundancy do we have? etc… How are we QCing our workflow & work products? If the answers are “we just wing it and expect everybody to do unpaid overtime for a year”, well … you know what to do. Agree with everybody else that you need to totally distance yourself from the info you found on this guy and do nothing with it. Except make your own private contingency plans for what you’ll do if he goes. Or if he stays. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-dilemma-co-workers-legal-troubles/706845/29 "2014-12-10T23:34:54Z")
I’m starting to wonder whether HR has one problem… or Two. (I’m not the only one who has noticed either.) ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-dilemma-co-workers-legal-troubles/706845/30 "2014-12-11T00:22:46Z")
> [@Count\_Blucher](#): > > I’m starting to wonder whether HR has one problem… or Two. Yes, you dear soul, congratulations on your astonishing original insight, sense of ethical nuance, and astute reading comprehension. How could this thread ever have flourished without your contributions? I look forward to your future contributions, and thanks for stopping by. ---
**Author:** ![Zorkmid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e68b1a/32.png) [@Zorkmid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zorkmid)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-dilemma-co-workers-legal-troubles/706845/31 "2014-12-11T01:20:22Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > That was just to answer the 99% of people who ask (appropriately) why I even stuck my nose into this. It has an effect on me. If it didn’t, sure, the Municipal Court Judge gets to decide what he gets away with… you expect me to go on a vendetta and ruin the guy if he gets a light sentence? No, if I “expected” anything I’d expect you to be cracking open a bottle of champagne and dancing in the street because your workload wouldn’t be changing if the guy got off easy :rolleyes:. In your position I’d be more concerned about the wife and the guy getting put away for what he did, but that’s just me I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-dilemma-co-workers-legal-troubles/706845/32 "2014-12-11T01:27:13Z")
I’ll say to the OP that if management “encourages” you to socialize with him, and you refuse, and they ask “why not, he’s perfectly nice,” then THEY will have asked YOU, and there’s less chance of the (perhaps overblown, perhaps not) snitch concerns of other posters. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-dilemma-co-workers-legal-troubles/706845/33 "2014-12-11T01:41:28Z")
> [@Count\_Blucher](#): > > I’m starting to wonder whether HR has one problem… or Two. > > (I’m not the only one who has noticed either.) These two sentences were my entire post here. I withdraw them. I’m Done trying to help you. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-dilemma-co-workers-legal-troubles/706845/34 "2014-12-11T02:34:21Z")
> [@Zorkmid](#): > > No, if I “expected” anything I’d expect you to be cracking open a bottle of champagne and dancing in the street because your workload wouldn’t be changing if the guy got off easy :rolleyes:. All I can say is I understand the world looks pretty strange when you have weak reading comprehension. > [@](#): > > In your position I’d be more concerned about the wife and the guy getting put away for what he did, but that’s just me I guess. From my position I don’t even know if he’s guilty - that’s the purpose of the Municipal Court of Wherever. But I do believe he’s guilty and I hope they’ll put him away. But that entails a cost to myself and my colleagues, which is why I’ve been considering outing him before they give him more responsibility. I mean really… the thing I hope most is that he didn’t really assault his wife and this is just an overblowing case of crockery-throwing. That would be the best of all worlds. But all evidence suggests he’s a narcissistic psychopath and we’re all better off without him, the sooner the better. ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-dilemma-co-workers-legal-troubles/706845/35 "2014-12-11T03:20:02Z")
FWIW, I would turn him in. A long history of past convictions, which extend past the spousal abuse. The appearance of ignoring laws. Does he handle money, interact with business partners, customers, the public? Can he be trusted not to skim off the top? Your employer has the right to understand his past history and evaluate whether they feel he can be trusted to continue in his current role, before something unfortunate happens (either he is convicted, someone finds his public records from outside the company, or he decides scarper off with the expense fund). I would regard this as your duty. Your decision if you make it your last hurrah as you leave. Also, from the information shared, he’s a rat bastard fink. Doesn’t invalidate my earlier argument, but feel free to enjoy the moment. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-dilemma-co-workers-legal-troubles/706845/36 "2014-12-11T03:30:37Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Keep silent, watch it happen, act shocked. Keep silent, watch it happen, then pull a sealed envelope from your pocket. Inside the sealed envelope is a written prediction of what just transpired. Signed by Elvis Presley. They’ll be so shocked by the accuracy of the prediction they won’t figure out that the Elvis signature is a forgery. ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-dilemma-co-workers-legal-troubles/706845/37 "2014-12-11T04:09:58Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > Keep silent, watch it happen, act shocked. Bingo! There is no way that this will play out well if you speak. You know nothing about your co-workers except what you learn in the normal course of business. In the medical profession, just looking at a patient history will make you unemployable if you have no professional reason for looking. Remember the kid in school who told on everybody? Some things don’t change; just the consequences escalate. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-dilemma-co-workers-legal-troubles/706845/38 "2014-12-11T04:45:47Z")
Talk to your boss in general about contingency plans for dealing with the work “in case somebody gets hit by a bus” – workload, keeping notes so that someone else could pick up a project, etc. Then in a few weeks when it happens, you’ll look like a foresighted genius, which should help your status at work. And find a friend in your field who’s a good hard worker and needs a job/better job. So that when he goes and there is suddenly the excess workload, you can say “I know of someone we could get very quickly to help with this temporary crisis…” and look like a genius again. (And help a friend out, and have a more productive fellow worker.) Or maybe, like you said, start looking yourself for a better company to work for. But I wouldn’t rat him out to management. Just use this info to prepare yourself. ---
**Author:** ![get\_lives](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ecb155/32.png) [@get\_lives](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/get_lives)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-dilemma-co-workers-legal-troubles/706845/39 "2014-12-11T04:54:52Z")
Call me crazy, but I seriously doubt googling a co-worker’s name and reading the first couple pages of search results violates any HR policy NOT created by someone who is too old and out-of-touch to be safely allowed to set such policies. IOW, many of you are either full of it on that issue, or de facto full of it. You can’t seriously expect people not to occasionally look up a co-worker online. I’ve not done it (that I can immediately recall, except for looking people up on facebook), but I can’t see automatic provable harm. I’m going to have to see an actual cite for this probably-bullshit assertion. And a general blanket policy against things like harrassing co-workers doesn’t count. Googling is not harrassment. ROFL That said, I’d anonymously out the guy, 15 minutes AFTER I had another job offer. If he were a jerk. And he sounds like a world-class jerk, just the kind that needs a job loss and some jail time to wake him up. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-dilemma-co-workers-legal-troubles/706845/40 "2014-12-11T10:52:26Z")
> [@"Who do you love?" - the song...](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-do-you-love-the-song/91965/1): > > … he sounds like a world-class jerk, just the kind that needs a job loss and some jail time to wake him up. Must be contagious. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-dilemma-co-workers-legal-troubles/706845.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethical-dilemma-co-workers-legal-troubles/706845.md?page=3)