A man who was fired by IBM for visiting an adult chat room during the workday is suing the company for $5 million, claiming he is an Internet addict who deserves treatment and sympathy rather than dismissal.
James Pacenza, 58, of upstate Montgomery, says he visits chat rooms as treatment for traumatic stress incurred in 1969 when he saw his best friend killed during an Army patrol in Vietnam.
In papers filed in federal court in White Plains, Pacenza said the stress caused him to become "a sex addict, and with the development of the Internet, an Internet addict." He claimed protection under the American with Disabilities Act.
He argues that other IBM workers with worse offences have been disciplined less severely - including a couple who had sex on a desk and were transferred rather than sacked.
"Engaging in sexual intercourse on an IBM desk is potentially more disruptive of the workplace than is a brief visit to a computer chat room resulting in words on a monitor," Pacenza said. IBM spokesman Fred McNeese, a spokesman for Armonk-based IBM, would not comment.
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