Mail marked Private & confidential

Mark_Hewitt

fluffnutter wrote: »

I think the Private and Confidential part is an irrelevancy, legally speaking. Although it might well mean something in the workplace, in terms of convention.

Agreed, all post can be assumed to be private and confidential, without being marked as such.

But as the company took an item of the OP's property with intent to permanently deprive, then theft is indeed appropriate.

bris

The boss is entitled to open it as it was delivered to the business address. It is no different to the employers rights to open any email sent to anyone within the company. All mail sent within a business can be treated as business related and the employer can treat it as such. They can even, if necessary open an employees personal locker so there is no privacy within the workplace.

agrinnall

Several posters seem to have assumed that the OP is actually writing about a personal experience. While that may be the case there's nothing in the post to say that it has happened so accusations of theft are misplaced.

The_Pedant

As Bris states, any mail addressed to the company address is essentially seen as being addressed 'to the business'. Therefore it can be opened by anyone the company may choose.

squeaky

The_Pedant wrote: »

As Bris states, any mail addressed to the company address is essentially seen as being addressed 'to the business'. Therefore it can be opened by anyone the company may choose.

Granted that the company can open the mail, do they also have the right not to pass it on to the named person at that address?

the_insider

squeaky wrote: »

Granted that the company can open the mail, do they also have the right not to pass it on to the named person at that address?

I suppose it comes down to personal judgement on the part of the person who opens the mail. We receive hundreds of pieces of mail each day in my department, usually addressed to a specific individual, and it's just passed to the next available person to deal with. Unless it's a compliment in which case it goes direct to the case handler in question.

fluffnutter

squeaky wrote: »

Granted that the company can open the mail, do they also have the right not to pass it on to the named person at that address?

I'd certainly want to know why the mail wasn't passed on. It might be for a purely innocent reason; it might not. It's a shame that Oopsadaisy hasn't been back to give more details (unless it's a general question although methinks not...)