Man Fired For Adult Chat At Work Sues Employer

A man who was fired by IBM for visiting adult chat rooms at work is suing the company for $5 million, claiming he is an Internet addict who deserves treatment and sympathy rather than dismissal.

The 58 year-old James Pacenza from Montgomery, New York says he visits chat rooms to treat "traumatic stress" incurred in 1969 when he saw his best friend killed during an army patrol in Vietnam. Pacenza says the stress caused him to become "a sex addict, and with the development of the Internet, an Internet addict".

And he claims protection under the American with Disabilities Act.

His lawyer, Michael Diederich, says age discrimination led to IBM's actions as Pacenza, 55 at the time, could have retired in a year.

IBM says, "Plaintiff was discharged by IBM because he visited an Internet chat room for a sexual experience during work after he had been previously warned".

Pacenza, who has a wife and two children, said he tried to stay away from chat rooms at work, but that day, "I felt I needed the interactive engagement of chat talk to divert my attention from my thoughts of Vietnam and death. I was tempting myself to perhaps become involved in some titillating conversation".

Pacenza was called away before he got involved in any online conversation. But he apparently did not log off, and when another worker went to Pacenza's station, he saw some chat entries, including sexual messages.

Pacenza argues that other workers with worse offences were disciplined less severely - including a couple who had sex on a desk and were simply transferred.

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