Steve Kent's privacy breached by Mount Pearl's handling of Facebook messages, judge rules

The City of Mount Pearl breached the privacy of Steve Kent by reading his Facebook Messenger chats while Kent was suspended from his job as top civil servant, a Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court judge has ruled.”I find that Mr. Kent has privacy rights in the disputed messages,” Justice Alexander MacDonald wrote in a decision released Thursday morning.”I find that the city infringed those rights.”MacDonald made the decision as part of court actions filed by two former councillors, Andrea Power and Andrew Ledwell, to get reinstated to their seats.Power and Ledwell were dismissed from Mount Pearl council in June 2020 for failing to disclose a conflict of interest.They were accused of having discussions with Kent about a workplace harassment investigation involving him. Kent had been placed on paid leave by the city in the fall of 2019.Kent intervened in the ongoing court matters involving the two former councillors, contending that Facebook Messenger chats between himself, Power and Ledwell should be excluded from the record.MacDonald agreed.”The city intentionally intruded on Mr. Kent’s private affairs by reading the disputed messages,” he wrote in his decision.”Furthermore, I find that this intrusion would be highly offensive to a reasonable person.”Mount Pearl had defended its actions…
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