Email privacy

So, this guy got fired from a job.

Then he finds out later, they're reading his personal email.

Now I get that companies have access to your work email. It's their email server, you're using their computer to work.

But what the hell? When I use Gmail, or Yahoo, or any other free web email service, that should be private. How did they even read this guy's email? If he left himself logged in to a computer at work, and they didn't log out, and used the access, that's gross. But if they sniffed his password and broke into his account to read emails between him and his lawyer, that's just evil.

I hope the case goes to a judge who's younger than 80 years old, and can understand the differences in the technological examples, and apply traditional standards of privacy in a sane way. I suspect I'll be disappointed.