Keeping employees on electronic leashes such as laptops, BlackBerries and other devices that keep them constantly connected to the office could soon lead to lawsuits by those who grow addicted to the technology, a U.S. academic warns.

In a follow-up to an earlier paper on employees’ tech addictions, Gayle Porter, associate professor of management at the Rutgers University School of Business in Camden, New Jersey, has written a paper that states workers whose personal lives suffer as a result of tech addictions could turn their sights on their employers.

“These people that can’t keep it within any reasonable parameters and have these problems in their lives, at some point may say: ‘My life is not all that great. How did this happen? Who can I blame for this?’,” Porter, who co-authored the study with two other academics, said in an interview on Thursday. “And they’re going to say, ‘The company’.”

Porter says she isn’t picking on RIM or the BlackBerry in particular, but notes that terms like “CrackBerry” show that “there is, however lightheartedly, some acknowledgment that many people have kind of gotten out of control with using these devices.”

Others complain of simply being unable to unplug at home, with laptops, e-mails or conference calls keeping them working into the wee hours.

Porter argues litigation could be the next step, as employees seek redress for technology dependence. She predicts companies could use a free-will argument in defending themselves: “They’re going to, I would suspect, say that this was an individual choice.”

I know we snicker over this litigious society we live in. Once in a while, I suppose we overlook a genuine personal disaster because of it.

In this case, I just think an addictive personality is an accident waiting to happen — and companies need a sharp HR department to keep their eyes open for types that latch onto technology the same way they grab the brass ring of gambling or chemical crutches.