Updates to our Terms of Use

We are updating our Terms of Use. Please carefully review the updated Terms before proceeding to our website.

Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Unions Sued over Summer Camp Surveillance

NASHVILLE (CN) - Local unions illegally installed hidden video cameras at a summer camp for underprivileged children in order to spy on the camp operators, who were members of a competing union, the minor campers and their guardians claim in a class action in Federal Court.

The plaintiffs say they were secretly recorded as collateral damage in the power struggle between local chapters of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the rival Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), who ran the camp.

On Feb. 9, 2006, the teamsters union replaced the FOP as the collective bargaining agent for the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department. But in light of a movement to decertify the teamsters and reinstate the FOP, the teamsters installed surveillance equipment at the camp in order to obtain footage that might be used against the FOP in the upcoming vote, the lawsuit claims.

The children attending the camp were allegedly filmed in the process, without their knowledge or permission.

About 40 to 50 disadvantaged kids attend a typical week-long camp, the lawsuit claims. "This constitutes an invasion of the privacy rights in the photographs and films of the minor children."

The plaintiffs demand actual and punitive damages. They are represented by David Randolph Smith.

Categories / Uncategorized

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Loading...