What is the name of your state? Ohio, This is a Federal Case...
An employee internally reports sexual harassment to their HR Manager. The HR Manager consults internally with in-house legal staff (seperate department and facility) on how to proceed. There are several exchanges of correspondence between HR and Legal and over a 2-3 week span in dealing with the issue. Within the 4th week, other management personnel gets involved in the situation, bypasses/ignores HR's efforts to this point and decides the best way to handle it is to get rid of both parties. The employers record shows the harasser was terminated for "workplace violence", the complaintant terminated for violations of other company poilcies.
For the sake of keeping this summation short, all the EEOC stuff happened, was dismissed, suit was filed for Sexual Harassment and Retaliation. The employer contends that the harassment and complaint never happened, and the employment actions on policy violations are pure and freestanding acts, concealing any and all evidence relevant to the existence of the harassment complaint.
Within a very recent "Discovery Conference", the Defendants Counsel has revealed there are some documents, in some file, which are relevant to something that is on file concerning the plaintiff, that had been communicated to legal counsel in about the time the Plaintiff alleges Plaintiff reported Sexual Harassment, but that they are not disclosing the correspondence under the claim of Atty / Client Privilege. The Defendant has been ordered by the Magistrate to create their "Privilege Log(List)" from this "un-named" folder/source which the Magistrate stated that would be refered to within the Order as "(Plaintiff's) Sexual Harassment Complaint", with the Magistrate confirming with Defendant's Counsel if that was reasonable enough description within the Order for them to clearly understand WHICH documents were being refered to, Defendants Counsel responded affirmatively.
I am looking for advice on what can be done to compel the Defendants to produce the documents that substantiate the existence of the Sexual Harassment Complaint, that they are not disclosing under the claim of Atty / Client Privilege. This particular matter is the very crux of the Claims in the Complaint, and the very last thing the Defenadant will willingly disclose because it will spawn a "domino effect" to their entire defense. I expect them to be evasive in their Privileged document log/list so as to not expose the fact that the (Privileged) documents are indeed legal correspondence regarding a SH Complaint.
Besides the fact that this question is obviously the product of incompetent prosecution, and that responses to that effect will not be helpful, I'm interested in hearing constructive thoughts on how to bring this particual issue to light.
Thanks in advance....
An employee internally reports sexual harassment to their HR Manager. The HR Manager consults internally with in-house legal staff (seperate department and facility) on how to proceed. There are several exchanges of correspondence between HR and Legal and over a 2-3 week span in dealing with the issue. Within the 4th week, other management personnel gets involved in the situation, bypasses/ignores HR's efforts to this point and decides the best way to handle it is to get rid of both parties. The employers record shows the harasser was terminated for "workplace violence", the complaintant terminated for violations of other company poilcies.
For the sake of keeping this summation short, all the EEOC stuff happened, was dismissed, suit was filed for Sexual Harassment and Retaliation. The employer contends that the harassment and complaint never happened, and the employment actions on policy violations are pure and freestanding acts, concealing any and all evidence relevant to the existence of the harassment complaint.
Within a very recent "Discovery Conference", the Defendants Counsel has revealed there are some documents, in some file, which are relevant to something that is on file concerning the plaintiff, that had been communicated to legal counsel in about the time the Plaintiff alleges Plaintiff reported Sexual Harassment, but that they are not disclosing the correspondence under the claim of Atty / Client Privilege. The Defendant has been ordered by the Magistrate to create their "Privilege Log(List)" from this "un-named" folder/source which the Magistrate stated that would be refered to within the Order as "(Plaintiff's) Sexual Harassment Complaint", with the Magistrate confirming with Defendant's Counsel if that was reasonable enough description within the Order for them to clearly understand WHICH documents were being refered to, Defendants Counsel responded affirmatively.
I am looking for advice on what can be done to compel the Defendants to produce the documents that substantiate the existence of the Sexual Harassment Complaint, that they are not disclosing under the claim of Atty / Client Privilege. This particular matter is the very crux of the Claims in the Complaint, and the very last thing the Defenadant will willingly disclose because it will spawn a "domino effect" to their entire defense. I expect them to be evasive in their Privileged document log/list so as to not expose the fact that the (Privileged) documents are indeed legal correspondence regarding a SH Complaint.
Besides the fact that this question is obviously the product of incompetent prosecution, and that responses to that effect will not be helpful, I'm interested in hearing constructive thoughts on how to bring this particual issue to light.
Thanks in advance....
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