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Thursday, May 5, 2011

DA: 'Bad faith' in schools case

Battle brews over schools' desire to vet requests seeking school system documents from DA's office
By Janet L. Conley, Associate Editor, 'Daily Report'

The DeKalb County district attorney and King & Spalding are clashing bitterly as multimillion-dollar civil litigation over the DeKalb County School District, the firm's client, becomes enmeshed with the DA's prosecution of former school officials.

In a scathing brief filed on Friday and replete with phrases that have been italicized, bolded or both, DeKalb DA Robert D. James Jr. wrote that King & Spalding and its client showed "bad faith and collusion" and claimed attorney-client privilege "where it does not exist" in discovery-related matters.

The DA's office stopped just short of accusing the firm of making a frivolous bid to halt discovery, implying via carefully placed quotation marks that King & Spalding and the school district engaged in disingenuous legal reasoning: "As with the 'confusion' over adequate remedies at law … it would seem that this Court continues to experience delays due to such 'legal missteps.'"

The legal issue underlying this war of words is whether King & Spalding and its client should be able to vet a third-party discovery request seeking school system documents not from the school system itself, but from the DA's office. Prosecutors had obtained the papers from the school system via voluntary document production, subpoena and seizure following a search warrant.

A key player in this drama is the school system's adversary in the civil case, Heery International Inc., which contends the school system in bad faith terminated its contract to manage school construction projects.

Heery has, in the context of its civil litigation, asked the DA's office to produce documents the DA obtained from the school system in preparation for a criminal corruption case alleging school officials including former Superintendent Crawford Lewis jettisoned Heery and its joint venture partner, E.R. Mitchell & Co., so they could illegally steer contracts to friends. That request came on the heels of Heery's so-far unsuccessful bid to get those same documents via an Open Records Act request.

"This Court should prohibit Heery from obtaining through the back door what it cannot [get] through the front door," wrote King & Spalding partner Robert C. Khayat Jr. That plea came in a motion to prevent the DA from producing the documents until the school district's counsel can review them for attorney-client privilege or work product issues.

But the DA's office responded that the school district has stonewalled discovery all along: "The paucity of documents produced and the improper redacting of documents that were provided forced the District Attorney to obtain search warrants in order to properly investigate its case."

Khayat, in an interview, said his firm was not involved in the production of those documents and always has encouraged the school district to "cooperate as much as possible."

The school district first attempted to protect the documents with a motion for a protective order to the judge in the civil matter, DeKalb Superior Court Judge Clarence F. Seeliger. He heard arguments on the issue in March and, at a suggestion from the DA's office—which Deputy Chief Assistant DA John S. Melvin later retracted—told the schools' counsel he thought they needed to petition for mandamus.

On April 1, the school district filed a petition for mandamus, only to be met by the DA's vehement motion to dismiss. The mandamus, the DA argued, seeks "what is tantamount to preemptive injunctive relief" and is legally insupportable to a degree that the school system must have known.

Khayat responded: "The relief that we're seeking is not in any way frivolous. We're seeking the protection of the attorney-client privilege, which is one of the most sacrosanct privileges in law."
James, did not return a call for comment.

David Rubinger, a spokesman for DLA Piper, the law firm for Heery International, declined to comment because the matter is pending, saying that the DA's filings speak for themselves.

One of those filings, a brief in support of the motion to dismiss the mandamus petition, calls the nature of the petition "haphazard and ill-advised." It links the school district's pushback on discovery requests to "a belief that at least some [school district] officials and employees who are being prosecuted in the Criminal Case cannot be called as witnesses in the Civil Case due to the potential that they may raise their Fifth Amendment privilege."

But the Fifth Amendment doesn't present an absolute bar to calling criminal defendants in civil cases, the DA's office argued. It added in a footnote that the Fifth Amendment shields against compelled self-incrimination, not legitimate inquiry, which means it is the trial court's responsibility "to determine whether the refusal to respond to discovery is within the privilege claimed."
The motion to dismiss then lists at least 25 grounds for dismissal.

Included are suggestions about appropriate means by which King & Spalding could have sought to protect the documents—such as excluding such evidence at the civil trial. The DA also alleged that the school district waived any privilege it had when its counsel contacted lawyers for a defendant in the criminal case.

The DA charged that the petitioned relief—an order "essentially directing the District Attorney to 'pre-clear' responsive documents through counsel" for the school district—can't prevent their public use because they are subject to being filed as discovery. The documents can also be introduced as evidence in the criminal case to which the school district is not a party and has no standing, the DA said.

Also, the DA said, to support a petition for mandamus, the school district must show it would suffer harm, and it hasn't done so.

Instead, the school district "merely incants 'privilege,' failing to identify any particulars," the DA's office argued.

The DA added that King & Spalding took one "desultory swipe" at privilege when it alleged that the DA's office was cooperating with Heery, as the DA produced some of the allegedly privileged documents after the school district filed its motion for a protective order but 24 days before a response was due.

Those affidavits were from Cynthia L. Hill, a lawyer working as a compliance officer with the school district who became a whistleblower and whose affidavits apparently address whether Heery was wrongfully terminated.

The DA's office said the school district's claim of privilege in that affidavit, because it involves "one lawyer speaking to another lawyer," is a "mischaracterization" because Hill "was not seeking or giving legal advice."

The DA analogized that claim to "the same sort of frivolous claims of 'potential privilege' condemned by [the] Federal District Court for the Northern District of Georgia in CBT Flint Partners LLC v. Return Path, Inc. … [where] Judge Thomas Thrash awarded attorney's fees after King & Spalding … made discovery claims that were determined to be, among other things, 'just not true.'"

That case, said Khayat, is irrelevant in the present action. "I think this should be decided on the facts and circumstances here," he said.

The DA's office also alleged that King & Spalding and its client mischaracterized their release of the Hill affidavits as "evidence of some sort of preposterous conspiracy between Heery … and District Attorney James. This tapestry of vitriol is unsupported by anything other than fear and suspicion and is patently false."

In a footnote, the DA's office continued, "Such acrimony is indicative of counsel who not only files suit without legal justification, but who has also lost objectivity."

Khayat denied that his firm acted without legal justification. "The relief that we're seeking is not extraordinary. It's just an opportunity to make any appropriate privilege reviews," he said. "It's standard to review your own documents prior to production, and often in the context of two parties, who for example have contracted together and done so on a confidential basis, it would be ordinary for one to offer the other to review documents prior to a response to a subpoena. Here, it's a little bit different because the district attorney's office seized … some documents, and others were given voluntarily."

Khayat said some of the documents likely are privileged because they reflect the content of meetings between the district and its lawyers. He stressed that his client was not looking for a blanket protective order, only for an opportunity to raise any privilege issues before the judge.

But the DA's office, in its motion to dismiss, pointed to a darker notion, alleging that rather than attempting to satisfy the "towering legal burden" required to support a mandamus, the school district and its lawyers cited law that was "at best, inapposite," and chose to "mischaracterize the facts and law and engage in wild, unsupportable accusations."

The inference the DA's office drew from that tactic in its motion to dismiss: "The American justice system has long observed that how an individual reacts when confronted reflects not only the veracity of the confronting facts, but also the lack of credibility of the one confronted. Georgia law contains voluminous authority for the admissibility of 'adoptive admissions,' 'admissions by conduct' and 'admissions by silence.'

"Applying those principles to this case would lead to one, inescapable conclusion: The school district 'is wrong, they know it and went forward anyway.'"

The case is DeKalb County School District v. James, and Heery Int'l, intervenor, No. 11CV4122.

Correction: The May 4 story "DA: 'Bad faith' in schools case," about the DeKalb County School District's civil litigation, reported that DeKalb Deputy Chief Assistant District Attorney John Melvin during a hearing retracted an earlier statement indicating a petition for mandamus was the appropriate vehicle by which to resolve an aspect of the dispute. Melvin's position is that he maintained that mandamus was the proper vehicle, but said during the hearing that even mandamus would not work because of the right the school system was attempting to exert. Also in this story, the Daily Report reported that David Rubinger was a spokesman for DLA Piper. Rubinger is a spokesman for Heery International, Inc., DLA Piper's client.

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Reprinted with permission from Daily Report

21 comments:

  1. For a bit of a recent update on the suit, also read this March 7 report from the AJC

    DeKalb's lawsuit tab: $15.5 million and climbing

    Emmanuel Jones is quoted,

    “In cases like that, no one wins,” said Jones, who heads the DeKalb Senate delegation. “I think they should go to mediation instead of spending another $10-15 million. In the days when every dollar is scrutinized and every dollar is crucial, we are not in a position to be fighting contractors and insurance companies with deeper pockets.”

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  2. And Tom may have made Heery's case for them in this AJC interview,

    School board chairman Tom Bowen said that many times the board didn’t know what it was voting on or was told to approve it or risk having buildings not ready in time for the start of school.

    “Approval of change orders by nine board members randomly elected by the public with almost no candidacy requirements other than residency cannot reasonably be considered to be any kind of approval of the quality of the construction or the construction program,” Bowen said.


    Firm’s methods questioned

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  3. Simply put, the DeKalb County School System stakeholders and taxpayers are being twisted into strained configurations. (Look up "screwed" in Mirriam Webster Dictionary)

    I ask again, why are the leaders in Crawford Lewis' inner-circle still on the payroll? Seems to me Tyson, Moseley, Thompson, Mitchell-Mayfield, Berry, Turk, Ramsey and Tucker had to know something was going on. They have spent the last year redacting every file that the DA's office, the media or stakeholders have not asked for or FOIA'd.

    I do not trust anyone who are currently working for US, the taxpayer and DCSS stakeholders, to tell us the truth.

    To think there are people who actually want Tyson to remain as Super. Obviously, the friends and family of so many employees worry that their gravy train is soon to be dried up.

    Follow the money folks!

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  4. This is just another attempt to try the case in the media rather than on its merits. We are the only real losers in this case. Heery, Pope, and Lewis are of the same ilk.

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  5. You can certainly argue that the parties to the civil case all have vested financial interests, and would use PR freely to make their point. But the DA's interest is in winning the criminal case, and I am sure they are plenty annoyed that DCSS is muddying up the waters for them. You would naturally think that if DCSS had two high level employees accused of criminal malfeasance, they would want it vigorously pursued. Here, not so much. So I can definitely see why such a reaction on the part of the DA. Is DCSS so interested in salvaging their civil case that they are willing to undercut the criminal one? Sure looks like it.

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  6. Sharon, I didn't see a sign of trying the case in the media. This is a lawyer's report on the legal happenings in an intricate local case. The reporter didn't sensationalize, she simply reported. She collected interviews from all involved. Seemed pretty balanced from where I sit.

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  7. I agree. DCSS is starting to look like the bad guy in this litigation. After all, Heery-Mitchell doesn't have any indicted ex-executives to drag around as their own witnesses in a bogus countersuit.

    And shame on K&S for stringing this thing out, trying to get us into federal court and getting us bounced right out, hell, for even taking this case to bilk us out of millions that come from God only knows where in our shadowy budget.

    I'm interested in Cere's comment from a previous post about this auditor MGT who gave Heery a positive audit, who was dismissed by Lewis, and who is now working for DCSS on the redistricting. This is so wrong and inconsistent with DCSS's position in its countersuit.

    And I've heard an interesting rumor about Patricia Reid or Pope or whatever. I won't divulge unless others have heard it to, and from other sources.

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  8. Disgust and anger about the money that has been wasted and taken away from the children. What could we do with the millions that have been spent?

    I just keep praying that a new superintendent will come in and clean house and stop the madness of lawsuits that plague the county school system.

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  9. My newest thought is that all legal business of all school systems in the state should be handled through the attorney's general's office. The AG's office operates at the attorney for the state of GA to handle the defense of it's civil matters. We have the School System in DeKalb (and elsewhere -- I heard a heartbreaking story today from APS with APS spending 7 figures on attonrey's fees) spending untold millions on attorney's fess through outside lawyers who have little motivation to (1) mitigate fees; (2) settle cases or (3) just do the right thing -- all at taxpayer expense. The budget for attorney's fees comes from federal, state and local/property taxes. It's about time that something is done to control the attorney's fees -- my thought is to really go "in house" and send it to the attorney general - staff it so their expenses will go up -- but I think it would be much more cost effective. Civil cases could be pursued locally on contingnecy or 'in house'.

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  10. I wonder if K & S does any "Entertaining" with the school board members? You know, Braves/Falcons tix, lunches/dinners, typical lawfirm stuff. $350 a hour for litigation that is not too complex seems like a really high rate.

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  11. @Cere. Actually Sharon is absolutely correct.

    And who is Cynthia Hill who is referred to in the article as a whistle blower and an attorney doing compliance for DCSS?

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  12. So, what's the solution? No reporting on legal issues at all? I think taxpayers are all very highly concerned (rightfully so) that our school board and school leadership continues to spend millions upon millions of dollars on legal issues. Millions of dollars that are collected from taxpayers for the purpose of educating children. In fact, the leadership is so secretive about exactly how much they really spend on legal fees that they bury those costs deep within the budget. Why bury it if not because you know people would freak? I'm personally, quite tired of watching so much money go into the pockets of attorneys instead of the classroom.

    In fact - did you catch what Tony Hunter said at the board meeting when asked about the stolen laptops at Henderson MS? He actually said they have NO MONEY to replace them! Perhaps King & Spalding could donate a few? !

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  13. BTW - here's that quote Blue --

    In 2006, Lewis asked the school board to vote to replace an auditor that had given Heery/Mitchell a glowing report the previous year, telling the board the move was "an emergency," according to the plaintiffs.

    MGT of America in May 2005 reported that "an overall on-time and within budget completion in the face of a nearly 20 percent funding shortfall is evidence of the professionalism and experience of the Heery/Mitchell Joint Venture."

    "The [school system] is to be commended for hiring a competent agency representative," MGT concluded.



    Interestingly, this company, MGT, was dismissed by Dr. Lewis, however, is the company Tyson and the board recently hired to do the redistricting research. So which is it - are they bad or are they good?

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  14. I think the DA is just frustrated and a reporter from the Daily Report caught him at a good time. Remember, he needs to win this case for us.

    The Daily Report is a trade paper for attorneys and others who pay to surprise. This is not WSB or the AJC.

    Today's AJC reports that Cobb is overspending on indigent defense contract attorneys. Seems to be a problem everywhere.

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  15. Clew and Pope are indigents. We're in big trouble!

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  16. @themommy - you meant pay to subscribe, right?

    ;-)

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  17. Actually Cere, I think the solution is to take everything you read in the papers and on blogs with a grain of salt. That would include what I write. I wasn't there at the interview and I don't know what the reporter left out. I think that lawyers and especially prosecutors should keep their comments to the court room and their filings. If they don't I think they must need some more leverage and do not have the clear cut decision they want. The DA quoted may have said all that and if he did I have little faith in his ethics, fairness or honesty. The court room is the place for the decision not the press.

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  18. True enough. For example, as we've all seen - some on our board have figured out how to manipulate what gets leaked to the press - ensuring that the candidate they didn't want got kicked to the curb by the media. Little help from your friends... Someone on the board used WSB and the AJC to manipulate what was supposed to have been a closed door process that wasn't going their way. It worked like a charm.

    What's worse - no one seems particularly outraged. Their fearless leader has once again successfully swept this bad board behavior under the rug.

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  19. Ahhh, so Tom Bowen does have some talents...

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  20. Surprise? Clearly I was posting to early.

    Yes, pay to subscribe...

    ReplyDelete

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