California Appeals Court Upholds Five-Day Suspension of Attorney Over Phishing Failures
The California Court of Appeal affirmed a five-day unpaid suspension of staff lawyer Bedrossian after she repeatedly fell for simulated phishing emails and confronted the security team.
Employed since 2004, Bedrossian handled sensitive workers’ compensation cases for the State Compensation Insurance Fund and was required to complete annual cybersecurity training. The Fund regularly sent mock phishing emails to its 4,000 staff to gauge awareness, marking any click on links as a failure. Between December 2021 and December 2022, Bedrossian clicked links in three such tests, leading to additional one-on-one coaching that she later described as hostile and accusatory toward the analyst.
Following a third failure, the Fund suspended her without pay for five days. On appeal, Justice Frances Rothschild and Justices Gregory Weingart and Michelle Kim upheld the sanction, emphasizing that repeated phishing clicks could jeopardize the Fund’s fiduciary data and that her rude behavior undermined workplace cooperation. The court dismissed her claims of entrapment, fraud, and unconstitutional speech restrictions, noting she had not presented them to the State Personnel Board. Michael J. Monteiro represented the Fund throughout the proceedings.
Why it matters
The ruling clarifies employer authority to discipline employees for cybersecurity lapses and disruptive conduct.
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