Government Offices
Government Offices. — Similar principles apply to a public employer's work-related search of its employees' offices, desks, or file cabinets, except that in this context the Court distinguished searches conducted for law enforcement purposes. In O'Connor v. Ortega,303 a majority of Justices agreed, albeit on somewhat differing rationales, that neither a warrant nor a probable cause requirement should apply to employer searches "for noninvestigatory, work-related purposes, as well as for investigations of work-related misconduct."304 Four Justices would require a case-by-case inquiry into the reasonableness of such searches;305 one would hold that such searches "do not violate the Fourth Amendment."306clubjuris
303 480 U.S. 709 (1987).
304 480 U.S. at 725. Not at issue was whether there must be individualized suspicion for investigations of work-related misconduct.
305 This position was stated in Justice O'Connor's plurality opinion, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and by Justices White and Powell.
306 480 U.S. at 732 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment).