Is it legal for a private school to search your cell phone without your consent?
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Is it legal for a private school to search your cell phone without your consent?
I have reviewed the school’s handbook, which provides a list of all property that the school can search (bookbags, cars, pockets, lockers, and pockets). However, nowhere in the school handbook does it say that the school reserves the right to search cell phones. People have been getting in trouble based on information obtained from text messages on a confiscated cell phone. Can these people sue the school?
Asked on May 14, 2012 under Personal Injury, New York
Answers:
FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 11 years ago | Contributor
If the school's hand book and published rules do not allow for the search of a cell phone owned or possessed by a student that you are writing about, then from what you have written, representatives of the school at issue are not authorized to take such student's cell phones away from the student absent consent.
As to filing a suit for the return of the confiscated cell phones against the private school, an action would be in order by the cell phone's owner if the school does not return the property voluntarily assuming the school has no rules or regulations in place addressing cell phone usage on campus.
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