L.A. Seyfarth Team Achieves State Supreme Court Win: Holger Besch Quoted in The Recorder (also mentioned in the Daily Journal)
"State Supreme Court Narrows Workplace Privacy"

Holger Besch was quoted in the August 4, 2009 edition of The Recorder in the article, "State Supreme Court Narrows Workplace Privacy." The article discussed the California Supreme Court ruling in Hernandez v. Hillsides Inc. that held that employees have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the workplace, but that right has limits and it does not prevent employers from conducting some hidden surveillance in an employee's office for "legitimate business concerns." According to the article, the court dismissed a lawsuit by two clerical employees at Hillsides, who claimed they were spied on by a camera secretly set up in their shared office. Justice Marvin Baxter wrote in his decision that "An employer may have sound reasons for monitoring the workplace…. and an intrusion upon the employee's reasonable privacy expectations may not be egregious or actionable under the particular circumstances." In this case, Baxter said that Hillsides had an important motive to set up the camera: protecting the children on campus from a potential abuser.

Holger, who defended Hillsides in this case as part of a team of Seyfarth lawyers that included Laura Shelby and Candice Zee, commented that the firm's client "is very pleased with the decision and feels that the court reached the right result." The Daily Journal also reported on the case, mentioning Seyfarth's representation and noting Holger's comment that Hillsides was pleased with the outcome.