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''O'Connor v. Ortega'', , is a United States Supreme Court decision on the Fourth Amendment rights of government employees with regard to administrative searches in the workplace, during investigations by supervisors for violations of employee policy rather than by law enforcement for criminal offenses. It was brought by Magno Ortega, a doctor at a California state hospital after his supervisors found allegedly inculpatory evidence in his office while he was on administrative leave pending an investigation of alleged misconduct. Some of what they uncovered was later used to impeach a witness who testified on his behalf at the hearing where he unsuccessfully appealed his dismissal. Although lower courts had considered the issue, it was the first time the Supreme Court had. By a 5-4 margin, the Court ruled that public employees retain their Fourth Amendment rights. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's plurality opinion established an "operating realities" test for future courts to consider when public employees challenged searches during investigations, reflecting the lower reasonable suspicion standard the government had to meet as an employer. That did not establish binding precedent, since Antonin Scalia argued in a separate concurring opinion that her standard was too vague, and that the same searches which would be reasonable for a private employer were proper when conducted by their public counterparts. Harry Blackmun wrote for four dissenting justices that the search was clearly an investigatory one and thus a breach of the doctor's privacy. Since it could not decide how to apply that standard to Ortega's case as the record at that time did not establish whether the entry into Ortega's office had been for search purposes or not, the majority remanded the case to the district court. Eleven more years of litigation followed. At some points during it Ortega had to represent himself, and the Court itself had taken the unusual step of inviting Joel Klein to argue Ortega's case before them. It went back and forth between the district and appellate courts twice. Ortega finally prevailed after a jury trial in the late 1990s, and the Ninth Circuit denied Ortega's superiors their appeal. Despite the two different standards resulting from the split five-justice majority, lower courts have generally followed O'Connor's "operational realities" test in future cases involving actual searches. Observers thought the justices might resolve the conflict the next time a similar case of public employees alleging a search violated their Fourth Amendment rights came before it. When it did, in 2010's ''Ontario v. Quon'', they declined to do so, leaving the matter open for yet another future Court. ==Underlying dispute== In March 1981, Dr. Ortega, for 17 years the head of the psychiatric residency program at Napa State Hospital, a mental hospital in Napa, California, purchased a new Apple II computer to use in running the program. Half of the money for it had been donated by some of the residents; Ortega covered the rest. A month later, he asked Dr. Dennis O'Connor, the hospital's executive director and his superior, to sign some thank-you letters to the residents who had made contributions, and to authorize some purchase orders for peripherals and other accessories for the computer.〔''O'Connor v. Ortega'', 146 F.3d 1149 (9th Cir. 1998).〕 O'Connor was not sure whether the computer had been properly donated to the hospital, and hesitated to sign the letters. Two months later, Ortega suspended a resident for failing to report for a rotation. The resident complained to Dorothy Owen, the hospital's personnel director, that Ortega was retaliating against him for not only having not contributed to the purchase of the computer but advising other residents to ask him for their money back.〔 In late July, Owen told O'Connor of the resident's complaint. O'Connor asked Richard Friday, the hospital administrator, to begin an investigation into the resident's allegations specifically and the purchase of the computer generally. He gave Friday and his investigative team broad authority, including permission to search Ortega's office. The hospital otherwise had no policy on such searches.〔 O'Connor asked Ortega to take administrative leave the next day. Ortega instead received O'Connor's approval for two weeks of paid vacation, after which the administrative leave began. O'Connor told Ortega not to return to the hospital without his permission during his vacation. During the time Ortega was on vacation, Friday had the lock changed and kept the key in his own office.〔 When Ortega's vacation ended, O'Connor sent a letter to Ortega informing him he was now on paid administrative leave, and extending the restriction on visits to the hospital. Before Ortega had received it, he returned to the hospital. Finding his office door locked and unable to open it himself, he took the computer, then in an unsecured nearby room, home to work with it there, as he had done on occasion in the past.〔 Upon learning of this, O'Connor called the hospital police, believing that the computer was state property and thus Ortega had stolen it. At some other point during the time Ortega was on vacation and leave, a staff psychiatrist who ran a support group for residents told O'Connor about complaints of possible sexual harassment on Ortega's part from two female residents. It was not clear whether this took place before or after at least one thorough, highly intrusive search of Ortega's office. Materials were removed from Ortega's office, boxed and stored〔 when the security guard performing the inventory found it too difficult to sort out Ortega's property from the state's. On a separate visit to Ortega's office, Friday found several items—a Valentine, suggestively posed photo and inscribed book of love poetry—sent to Ortega several years earlier by a former resident. After the hospital fired Ortega in September, he appealed to the State Personnel Board. When the former resident testified on Ortega's behalf during the hearing, these items were introduced in an attempt to impeach her.〔 Owen asked Ortega after the firing if he wanted his personal possessions from his office returned. He did not. By spring of 1982 he had changed his mind. In response to another request, Asher Rubin, the deputy attorney general who had represented the state before the Personnel Board, told him he could make copies of his personal papers but could not keep the originals, nor any of his other personal property.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「O'Connor v. Ortega」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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