Court Opinion

ID: 9480726
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:56:33.46045+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:52.117881
License: Public Domain

EDMONDSON, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the judgment. I agree that in a lawsuit alleging the interception of oral communication in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2511, a plaintiff need only show interception of communication, not that particular conversations were intercepted. Given the facts, as detailed in today’s opinion, sufficient evidence raised a question of material fact regarding whether Walker’s communications had been intercepted. I thus agree that the district court erred in finding that no question of fact remained on this issue and in granting summary judgment.
While I concur in the judgment, I believe that much of today’s court opinion is dicta. The district court never discussed whether plaintiff’s expectations of being free from interception were justified, and defendants’ *1580motion for summary judgment says nothing about the reasonableness of such expectation in the circumstances. The reasonableness point was not raised in district court and not raised on appeal as I read the briefs. Today’s court need not decide the point to decide this appeal. And, on this record, I decline to address the question of when an employee may have a reasonable expectation of non-interception, especially without the district court having first addressed the question. On remand, the district court — with the help of the parties— can still consider the matter of reasonable expectations as more facts are developed, either at trial or in advance of trial.