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Sexual harassment lawsuit against Country Club Hills (more)

Oct 30

Posted by Admin in Fire Department News | Comments off

Excerpts from the ChicagoTribune.com:

A jury has awarded more than $11 million in damages to Country Club Hills Firefighter Dena Lewis-Bystrzycki who sued the city over alleged gender discrimination, sexual harassment and retaliation.

The lawsuit filed against the city in 2012, alleged she was passed over for a promotion and retaliated against for reporting misbehavior. She later amended her complaint to include allegations that firefighters regularly watched pornography at the fire station.

On Monday, after more than two weeks of trial testimony and a couple hours of deliberation, the jury returned a verdict in favor of Lewis-Bystrzycki. The 12-member jury found in favor of the firefighter on all three of her claims — gender discrimination, sexual harassment and retaliation — and awarded her a combined $11,213,000, a copy of the judge’s signed order shows.

The $11 million-plus award is broken down into $8 million for emotional harm and mental suffering; $2 million for compensatory damages; $1,085,000 for lost future earnings; $78,000 for time, earnings and salaries lost; and $50,000 for counseling expenses.

Judge McGrath instructed the jury it could draw adverse inferences from the city’s destruction of digital evidence and its failure to adequately search documents on its computers. She had previously ordered Country Club Hills to reimburse Lewis-Bystrzycki for attorney fees and costs incurred to hire a forensic expert.

An additional trial on equitable relief is scheduled for Nov. 6, according to the judge’s order. That proceeding would determine the amount Lewis-Bystrzycki will be entitled to for the loss of her pension and attorneys fees, which are estimated at $3 to $4 million. The judge also will be ruling on injunctive relief at that time, which could involve the city being forced to implement and adhere to policies, procedures and training around sexual harassment.

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Sexual harassment lawsuit against Country Club Hills (more)

Oct 14

Posted by Admin in Fire Department News | Comments off

Excerpts from the ChicagoTribune.com:

A Circuit Court judge who recently granted default judgment in favor of a female Country Club Hills firefighter who sued the city over gender discrimination and sexual harassment has reconsidered the severity of her sanctions.

Judge Brigid Mary McGrath, who defaulted the case Oct. 2 over the city’s repeated failure to comply with court orders, reversed course Wednesday after reviewing arguments made by the city’s attorneys. As a result, she granted the city’s motion for reconsideration, meaning that a jury will now determine liability, not just damages, in the case.

McGrath said she changed her mind after concluding that the city’s failure to turn over a 2010 fire department memo — which a forensic expert for Firefighter Dena Lewis-Bystrzycki discovered on the eve of trial — did not represent a direct violation of a prior court order, as she originally had thought.

The recently discovered memo from the city’s former fire chief states that Lewis-Bystrzycki was to be promoted to lieutenant following two retirements within the department. She never received the promotion, however, and has alleged in court filings that gender discrimination was the reason.

McGrath said that while Country Club Hills had been obligated to search and tender all relevant documents as part of the discovery process, she accepted the city’s explanation that its failure to search its computers was not deliberate but rather the result of the parties never having reached an agreement on an appropriate set of search terms.

While the judge rescinded her most drastic sanction — default judgment — she said she would still instruct the jury it could draw adverse inferences from the city’s destruction of digital evidence and its failure to adequately search documents on its computers.

The case, which dates back to 2012, is scheduled to proceed to trial Thursday.

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Sexual harassment lawsuit against Country Club Hills (more)

Oct 9

Posted by Admin in Fire Department News | 1 Comment

Excerpts from the ChicagoTribune.com:

Country Club Hills has forfeited its defense of a female firefighter’s 2012 sexual harassment and gender discrimination lawsuit over its repeated failure to comply with court orders, a judge has ruled.

Judge Brigid Mary McGrath entered the Oct. 2 default judgment after a lawyer for Firefighter Dena Lewis-Bystrzycki presented a recently discovered fire department memo the city had not turned over, despite city officials’ prior claims under oath that all responsive documents had been produced. McGrath entered the default order on the second and third counts of Lewis-Bystrzycki’s suit, which allege gender discrimination and hostile work environment in violation of the Illinois Human Rights Act and retaliation in violation of the Illinois Human Rights Act.

Unless McGrath vacates her order — an attorney for the city has filed a motion for reconsideration that will be heard Tuesday — the city would be liable for paying damages to Lewis-Bystrzycki in an amount to be determined by a jury, Country Club Hills attorney Stephen Miller said.

The recently discovered document, a June 11, 2010 memo from the former fire chief, states that Lewis-Bystrzycki is to be promoted to lieutenant following the retirements of two lieutenants. She never received the promotion, however, and has alleged in court filings that gender discrimination and harassment were the reason. Had the 2010 memo been turned over when ordered, the case would likely have already settled, Dana Kurtz, the lawyer for Lewis-Bystrzycki, argued.

Instead, Kurtz said, her client had not been promoted, no longer had a career — she’s been on paid leave from the department since 2015 — and had incurred $1.7 million in attorneys’ fees and expenses as a result of the city’s failure to produce the document.

“It’s just by chance that (plaintiff’s forensic expert Andrew Garrett) found this document last night,” Kurtz told the judge, according to a court transcript. “It should have been produced two years ago. It would have changed the nature and course of this litigation dramatically.”

Garrett testified that his forensic analysis of the Country Club Hills fire department’s computer workstations and email server showed the city never searched them for documents relevant to the lawsuit, as it had been ordered to do. His testimony that the city had not searched its computers for documents relevant to the lawsuit came just months after the judge sanctioned Country Club Hills for destroying digital evidence that its firefighters regularly viewed pornography on department computers, despite having received notice to preserve its computer files.

In rendering her Oct. 2 order granting default judgment, McGrath said that due to the city’s repeated failure to comply with her orders, the extent of relevant documents it had not produced could not be known.

McGrath said that even before the previously untendered memo surfaced, she had planned to order that Country Clubs Hills reimburse Lewis-Bystrzycki for attorney fees and costs incurred to hire her forensic expert and to instruct the jury it could draw an adverse inference from the city’s “unreasonable and willful destruction of ESI data on their computers despite being under an obligation to preserve that information.” But, the judge said, after the discovery of weighty documents that should have been produced that weren’t, she would reconsider her sanctions to include default judgment.

“Here we have a case in which defendant, despite giving — being given many opportunities, has failed to comply with the Court’s rules in two different ways; the first in actually searching the documents in its possession to ensure that all responsive documents are produced to the plaintiff and the second, to ensure that the information in its possession is maintained and not damaged,” McGrath said, according to a court transcript of last week’s proceeding.

“So I am going for the more drastic remedy of default, and I hate to do it, but I am going for the remedy of default in addition to the reimbursement for the fees and the expert fees and costs related to the third and fourth motions to compel.”

If McGrath upholds her prior order, the case would still proceed to trial, but the jury would be tasked only with determining the amount of damages, not the city’s liability.

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Sexual harassment lawsuit against Country Club Hills (more)

Sep 29

Posted by Admin in Fire Department News | 1 Comment

Excerpts from Fox32chicago.com:

Three years ago, a female firefighter filed a lawsuit alleging sexual harassment in Country Club Hills, including firefighters watching porn. Next week, that lawsuit goes to trial at the Daley Center.

Dena Lewis has been a Country Club Hills firefighter since 1998, but she’s been on paid leave for the past three years after filing a discrimination and retaliation lawsuit against the village. She says she was passed over for a promotion after she complained about firefighters watching porn in the firehouse, which she says was epidemic.

Initially, the Country Club Hills Fire Department denied it was even happening. But when Lewis’ lawyer deposed firefighters under oath, they told the truth.

The village has been sanctioned by the court for destroying evidence before Lewis’ legal team could look at the computers.

“They ran what’s called disc cleanup, disc wipe to try to wipe out the internet history and the evidence,” said attorney Dana Kurtz.

Records show three firefighters were suspended last fall for watching porn at the firehouse. But Lewis’ lawyer says the village refuses to confirm whether any disciplinary action was ever taken.

 

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Sexual harassment lawsuit against Country Club Hills (more)

Mar 15

Posted by Admin in Fire Department News | Comments off

Excerpts from the ChicagoTribune.com:

Thousands of web searches for pornography were found on four Country Club Hills Fire Department computers, according to testimony from a forensic expert.

Andrew Garrett — who performed the imaging Jan. 26 on behalf of Dena Lewis-Bystrzycki, a female firefighter involved in a lawsuit against Country Club Hills — testified last month to the presence of porn on the devices.

“There’s thousands of web searches for pornography. It’s all over the board,” Garrett testified Feb. 8, according to court transcripts. “It appears that they’ve wiped the hard drives, reloaded them, and I gave [Dana Kurtz, Lewis-Bystrzycki’s lawyer] three dates in which that was completely done.

“The problem was, once the computers were hooked back up, the servers pushed down profiles that had information of the previous web history and the searching of pornography.”

Lewis-Bystrzycki, a member of the department since 1998, alleges firefighters sexually harassed her and treated her in a hostile manner, engaged in gender discrimination when she came up for a promotion, retaliated against her for reporting misbehavior and regularly watched pornography at the station.

On Aug. 31, 2016, after concluding that a search of the department’s computers did not amount to a fishing expedition, a judge granted a motion ordering a forensic examination of the computers.

The examination occurred nearly five months after it was granted, and only after Judge Lynn Egan sanctioned the city for its failure to comply with the court-ordered computer imaging. Country Club Hills was ordered to reimburse the forensic expert for time and expenses related to the imaging as part of the sanctions.

After news of the sanctions was reported last month by a watchdog website but before results of the imaging were shared in court, the city’s lawyers filed an emergency motion for a protective order to stem the flow of information to the media.

They argue the gag order is necessary to prevent “irreparable, serious and imminent threats to Defendants’ rights to a fair trial,” according to court filings.

“It is expected — based on past pattern and practices — that plaintiff — through her counsel — will attempt to unjustly and purposefully influence the potential jury pool, so Defendants will be irreparably harmed by not getting a fair trial on the relevant, material and ultimately admissible evidence,” the city argued in its motion, citing a 2015 FOX 32 report about the lawsuit and the recent watchdog blog article.

Country Club Hills and its lawyers did not return requests for comment on the city’s recent motion for a gag order or on allegations made in Kurtz’s response that the city had destroyed evidence and was in contempt of a court order, and that firefighters regularly watched porn.

The city also asked the judge to allow it to screen any irrelevant or immaterial data found on the fire department’s computers, before they were passed along to Kurtz and Lewis-Bystryzycki, for fear it could be used as part of a smear campaign against the department.

Kurtz shot back with a response to the city’s motion, arguing that its allegations had no basis in fact and that the request for a gag order should be denied outright.

She had not been leaking information about the case to the news, Kurtz wrote, but rather the media had simply been reporting on publicly available court documents.

Her response to the gag order motion states that rather than focusing on the censure she received from a judge last year in an unrelated case, the city should really focus on their own conduct (or misconduct) in this case.

“Which,” her response continues, “has led to a default judgment being entered against them, them having to pay Plaintiffs’ attorneys fees for not answering the complaint in a timely manner and not responding, no less than 4 motions to compel and sanctions having to be filed by Plaintiff in this case, and almost all of them being granted.”

Kurtz also accused Country Club Hills of having “deliberately engaged in tactics to destroy evidence and commit spoliation.”

Despite the potential implications of Kurtz’s allegations, experienced Chicago trial lawyer Dan Kirschner said he thought it unlikely the case would be investigated by authorities.

His remedy in such situations, said Kirschner, a partner at Corboy & Demetrio who represents personal injury, wrongful death and medical malpractice complainants, is to bring it to the court’s attention and ask for a sanction, which could come in many forms, including jury instruction, striking any pleadings related to the issue or entering a default judgment.

Kurtz indicated in her Feb.15 response to Country Club Hills’ motion for a protective order that that would be the direction she would go. In it, she wrote that she intends to file motions of spoliation and contempt once Garrett finalizes his report on the computer imaging and releases it to her.

A hearing on the protective order requested by the city is scheduled for late next month.

thanks Dan

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Sexual harassment lawsuit against Country Club Hills (more)

Aug 31

Posted by Admin in Fire Department News | 1 Comment

Excerpts from theChicagoTribune.com:

Country Club Hills has suspended a firefighter who complained about gender discrimination, sexual harassment and porn in the fire station, according to the woman’s attorney.

Dana Kurtz, Lewis-Bystrzycki’s attorney, said the suspension is “simply more retaliation against her. It sends a clear message to everyone ‘do not complain or this is what will happen to you.'”

Earlier this month, Lewis-Bystrzycki filed a supplemental complaint against Country Club Hills alleging lieutenants have admitted knowing that employees watch porn in the fire station. Court records allege at least 45 instances of sexual harassment, discrimination or retaliation against Lewis-Bystrzycki dating back to the beginning of her employment.

Country Club Hills attorney Daniel Boddicker declined to comment, citing pending litigation, but said he believes the department will be successful on the merits of the case. Boddicker previously said the fire chief has “terminated access to the premium movie channels” where there is “nudity.”

thanks Dan

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Sexual harassment lawsuit against Country Club Hills

Aug 23

Posted by Admin in Fire Department News | 2 Comments

Excerpts from the ChicagoTribune.com:

On Dena Lewis-Bystrzycki’s first day as a Country Club Hills firefighter, the chief at the time allegedly leaned over to her and whispered a crude sexual invitation.

Some co-workers laughed. Lewis-Bystrzycki looked at one of them and asked, essentially, “Is this what I am to expect?”

“Welcome to the fire service,” the engineer allegedly responded, according to recently filed court records that detail the exchange.

Nearly two decades later, Lewis-Bystrzycki has filed a lawsuit alleging firefighters regularly watch pornography at the station, engaged in gender discrimination when she came up for a promotion and retaliated against her for reporting misbehavior.

There are only two full-time female firefighters in the department, according to the suit. Lewis-Bystrzycki, 40, is one of them. She said firefighting is in her blood as she’s following in the footsteps of several uncles, her father and grandfather.

“I was raised in a firehouse,” Lewis-Bystrzycki said in an interview.

Lewis-Bystrzycki has been a firefighter with Country Club Hills since 1998. She first sued the department in 2012, and on Wednesday she filed a supplemental complaint alleging lieutenants have admitted knowing that employees watch porn in the stations.

The lawsuit also alleges that many questions on the 2011 lieutenant promotion exam were written by the father of Carl Pycz, the male firefighter who got the job after scoring highest on the written exam.

Lewis-Bystrzycki complained at the time but was ignored, the lawsuit alleges. At one point, court records allege, Carl Pycz confronted Lewis-Bystrzycki with “a big smile and said, ‘Let the best man win.'”

Since Pycz’s promotion, the lawsuit alleges, he has retaliated against Lewis-Bystrzycki by excluding her from station meals, assigning her menial tasks and unfairly disciplining her.

Country Club Hills referred questions to its attorney, Daniel Boddicker, who said the fire chief has “terminated access to the premium movie channels” where there is nudity. He said the department is investigating the pornography allegations further.

Boddicker declined to comment on anything else but said the fire department expects to win the lawsuit.

Lewis-Bystrzycki’s attorney, Dana Kurtz, said this is one of the more egregious cases she’s seen.

“You have people in command that are doing nothing,” Kurtz said.

Court records filed earlier this month detail at least 45 instances of sexual harassment, discrimination or retaliation against Lewis-Bystrzycki dating back to the beginning of her employment. The alleged misbehavior spans nearly two decades.

In 1998, after Lewis-Bystrzycki started, a firefighter threw a ring used for sexual purposes at her.

One firefighter broke down the bathroom door in 1999 while Lewis-Bystrzycki was showering, according to the complaint.

There were a handful of incidents in 2009 where a male firefighter, and on one occasion two firefighters, climbed into Lewis-Bystrzycki’s bunk and said “cuddle with me” or something similar, court records allege.

In 2012, someone placed a sticker on Lewis-Bystrzycki’s locker with a sexual connotation, court records allege.

That same year, court records allege, Lewis-Bystrzycki came back to her locker and found a ceramic doll on top of it with its hands placed over its mouth. That indicated she should shut her mouth, court records allege.

In 2013, court records allege, Lewis-Bystrzycki was told by another firefighter that there was “an unwritten order given not to assist (Lewis-Bystrzycki) with anything.”

That incident, in particular, disturbs Lewis-Bystrzycki, she said. Fighting the case has left her “nerve-wracked, overwhelmed and scared.”

thanks Dan

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