Michael Dobbs alleged that his employer, Ford Motor Company, violated his privacy rights by reading his email and then illegally firing him on the basis of the content of some of his messages. Dobbs had transmitted a message over a company system to his brother-in-law about the company's sales management team in which he threatened to "kill the backstabbing ba****ds" and referred to an upcoming company party as the "Jim Jones Koolaid affair."[2]

Dobbs claimed that he often used the account to send personal emails and that management repeatedly assured employees that it would not intercept email. Did Dobbs have a reasonable expectation of privacy in his private emails? Explain.