A Call to State Legislators: It is Time to Take Inventory of a Former Employee's Ability to Access His/Her Personnel File Under Your State Statute

Stephen Moniak

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DOI: 10.2190/LFKD-U6F2-7W9E-9XM8

Abstract

In recent years, an increasing number of states have enacted statutes regulating the ability of employees to access their personnel files. The regulations govern when and how an employee may review this material. However, aside from an employee, many states do not mention precisely who may examine the file. In particular, only a handful of states allow a former employee to review his/her file. In a recent Pennsylvania decision, the Commonwealth Court held that a former employee was not entitled to examine the file under the guise of statutory construction. The Pennsylvania statute on point was silent on the issue of allowing former employees access to their files. The author examines this seemingly peculiar case and its potential effect on state statutes governing this area of the law.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.