Adult Chat Room Junkie Sues IBM for $5 Million for Firing Him

James Pacenza had worked for IBM for 19 years operating a machine that makes computer chips at a plant in East Fishkill, New York. Until he was fired, Pacenza had been making $65,000 a year operating the machine. Several times during the day, the operators of the machines had to wait for 5-10 minutes while the tool measured the thickness of silicon wafers, so machine operators could take a little break at those times.

During one of those down times on May 28, 2003, Pacenza, who was 55 at the time, used a computer at his workstation to log onto a chat room. According to his lawyer, Michael Diederich, Pacenza had visited the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial in Washington earlier that day, so he was feeling emotionally overwrought. He logged onto a site called ChatAvenue, and then moved into an adult chat room.

Pacenza said that he usually tried to stay away from chat rooms at work, but on that particular day he felt that he "needed the interactive engagement of chat talk to divert my attention from my thoughts of Vietnam and death." In court papers, he added, "I was tempting myself to perhaps become involved in some titillating conversation." Pacenza, who has a wife and two children, said that he was called away from the workstation before any online conversation ensued. But when another worker went to the workstation, he saw that Pacenza had not logged off, and there were chat entries displayed on the screen, including an obscene discussion about a sexual act. The worker reported the discovery to management, who fired Pacenza the following day.

Pacenza said that his managers at IBM encouraged workers to use the Internet while they were at work, and for him, it served as "a form of self-medication" for post-traumatic stress disorder. He claims that he suffered traumatic stress in 1969 when he watched his best friend killed during an Army patrol in Vietnam.

Claiming protection under the Americans with Disabilities Act, Pacenza has filed suit against IBM for $5 million, saying that he should have been offered treatment and sympathy, rather than being fired. In papers filed in federal court, Pacenza said that his post-traumatic stress disorder caused him to become "a sex addict, and with the development of the Internet, and Internet addict."

Diederich told reporters that his client never violated any written IBM rule, did not browse the Internet any more often than other employees, and never visited pornographic sites at work. He claims that IBM’s decision to fire Pacenza was based in part on age discrimination, since his client was 55 at the time and close to retirement. Pacenza says that other workers who committed worse offenses were disciplined less severely than he was, including a couple who had sex on a desktop and only received transfers.

IBM’s response to the lawsuit was to ask Judge Stephen Robinson for a summary judgment and dismissal of the suit, claming that company policy against surfing sexual websites is perfectly clear. The company also says that Pacenza had been warned that he could lose his job four months earlier after a similar incident. "Plaintiff was discharged by IBM because he visited an Internet chat room for a sexual experience during work after he had been previously warned," the company’s papers said. IBM also said that sexual behavior disorders are specifically excluded from the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Pacenza says that IBM decided to fire him only after the improperly accessed his medical records, including reports from a psychiatrist, following the incident. "In IBM management's eyes, plaintiff has an undesirable and self-professed record of psychological disability related to his Vietnam War combat experience," his papers claim. Diederich says that his client should have been afforded the same benefits as other IBM workers who are placed in programs to help them with drug or alcohol addictions.

A decision on the summary judgment is expected sometime next month. If the case goes to trial, the outcome could have an effect on how employers regulate Internet usage that is not related to work. A study by Stanford University last year found that up to 14% of computer users reported neglecting important obligations—including school, work, families, food, and even sleep—just to use the Internet. The study concluded that many people also hide their usage of the Internet or use browsing to escape a negative mood, just like alcoholics use alcohol and drug addicts use narcotics.