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I have an employee that lives in the state of Alabama. Around the beginning of March she and I had a lot going on in regards to communication about her job. In the process of this she opened up to me about the divorce she is going through. They have filed but are in the "discovery period" from what I understand. Anyways, over the last month or so she has turned to me for advice. We have had several conversations on a cell phone that is in her STBX's name so he has access to the records. Although many of these calls are job related there are also several that have been her asking me for advice, venting, etc. Some of these calls are pretty lengthy and have carried on into late hours of the night. This has led him to accuse us of having an affair which is simply not true. My question is a two part. First, can this be something that could be brought into the court proceedings? Two, I live in Tennessee and if I were to be served a subpoena would I be required to honor it since I am out of state? I just don't want to get pulled into the middle of this. It's a situation that is totally innocent and being blown way out of proportion. Also, none of these calls took place before they had officially filed for divorce. All have been after the preliminary hearing. Just wondering if I should be concerned with being pulled into the middle of this. Thanks in advance!

If you find yourself subpoenaed, the court may allow your written or telephone testimony. You can probably contact the attorney who subpoenaed you and ask for other arrangements, times, possibly even travel reimbursement. It may also matter how you were served the subpoena... Alabama might have one set of process serving rules (by mail for example), TN might have another set (in person only) and may not considered you properly served.

Hope you're not subpoenaed. I don't blame you for wanting to stay out.

Thanks for your info HevnMaidMe. What I am finding to be crazy in this whole deal is that I would have never thought someone would take simple phone calls so far. It's a sad day when you try and be there for someone and help them and could possibly end up in court over it! I guess that's my biggest question. To me it just doesn't seem like this would have any legs. Sure, there are phone records but there simply isn't anything else. Surely an attorney wouldn't try to run on something like that but I've been doing a lot of searching and it looks like there have been times when they have. It's just the last thing I would have expected out of the deal I guess. Like the saying goes, "No good deed goes unpunished"

In some states adultery can still have an impact on property settlement and spousal support. I have a coworker who filed for divorce after finding her husband cheated on her for years. He stood to lose a lot in the divorce, so he tried to make it as if she was doing the same thing. He knew for example each morning our boss would send two random people to pick up mail and packages from the post office (probably a 30 minute round trip) and had her lawyer question her about the male coworkers that accompanied her, and whether it was not possible for her to have stolen moments of intimacy affairs with them.

She was taken aback at the line of questioning. But likewise, she knew it was misleading and had nothing to hide when responding. Apparently, so did her ex and his attorney, as subpoenaing these male coworkers never materialized.

I am going to suggest that you be very careful of talking about personal information with employees. Maybe suggest an employee assistance service if your company has one.

You are opening yourself up not only to issues like this, but sexual harassment claims if an employee gets terminated later and says you had all these late night conversations, or if another employee gets passed up for a promotion and says you had an inappropriate relationship. (I'm sorry, I know that wasn't the question, but thought I'd mention it.)

With that said, I'm in California, so admittedly don't have the info for your state, but even marriages here that break up specifically because of an affair - it just doesn't factor in to the divorce. I would still try to back away from the advice giving and friendship and return it to a strictly professional level.

For what it's worth, there are probably 20 of these kinds of fishing expeditions threatened in divorce cases for every one that actually gets carried out, so the first thing I would do if I were you would be to take a chill pill.

Yes, you are subject to being subpoenaed in TN for an AL case, and yes, this information is potentially relevant to a divorce involving your employee. It's not up to you to explain that this is "totally innocent;" that's your employee's job. So if you are subpoenaed you should comply with the court's order and spend no energy trying to oppose it. If what you say is true, you have nothing to be ashamed of, and you should comport yourself as if you are fully confident of that fact.

Thanks to everyone for your responses, I really appreciate it!

We are a fairly small company and I have always had an "open" relationship with all of my employees throughout my career and it has always served me well. I have had many employees open up to me on personal issues over that time and have always done what I could to try and help. I looked at this situation no different but now certainly realize I should have evaluated things a little better in the beginning.

I guess I never envisioned getting pulled into the middle of a divorce process in a million years. As they say, hindsight is always 20/20. Ultimately, I have nothing to hide and neither does she so that's not an issue. If the process requires me to say that, I will. I guess I'm just amazed that could even be a possibility. It's disheartening to say the least.