Such documents would include performance evaluations or records of discipline located in a supervisor's file. The law also gives employees the right to explain or rebut disputed information. The rebuttal has to be sent to third parties along with the disputed information. The statute also provides a right of action through the courts to have false information expunged. Using this act, present or former employees request whatever documents were used to evaluate, investigate or discipline them.
Employees seek notes, internal memos, letters or other records in various files.
A request under the law is used as a pre-litigation discovery tool by employees to get documents to evaluate potential claims against the company. Sometimes the information is released by the company under the law. Other employers resist handing over some or all the documents on various grounds. The law itself prohibits giving out information of a personal nature about someone other than the employee if disclosure of the information would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of the other person s privacy. The law does not overcome common law or statutory privileges.