Georgia Injury Lawyer Blog
Our client Dr. Sherilonda Green prevailed at trial and obtained the original court order which directed the Defendant to assume the cost and directed the E-Discovery company to extract and produce all electronic messages, text and emails, sent between Superintendent Lairsey and Board members amongst others January 1, 2020 to present which pertain to or relate to the topics that included:
* Dr. Sherilonda Green
* Black peoples’ claims of discrimination at the District
* The lawsuit Dr. Green filed
* The open records request made by Dr. Green
* The comments made by Rev. Bobby Roberson and other people about discriminatory hiring practice within the District as discussed at board meetings
* Race, racism, Black Lives Matter and the N word
* New Superintendent search
The order further directed the E-Discovery company to produce analytic information showing what electronic messages were deleted during that time frame.
The Court found the District to be in willful contempt of this Court’s order of February 22, 2022. The Court also held that the “District is fined $1,000.00 per day, per electronic device, payable to the Clerk of Court weekly until it purges itself of this contempt, beginning on the 6th day after this order is filed with the Clerk of Court. The District may purge itself of this contempt by immediately turning over all electronic devices (security passcode removed) referenced in the order of February 22, 2022 to the Plaintiff or an E-Discovery Company retained by the Plaintiff within five (5) business days of this order. Additionally, each person submitting an electronic device covered by this order shall submit an affidavit stating whether this electronic device is the same one used by said person in the relevant time frame, whether they had other electronic devices at the time (if so, all such electronic devices must be produced), and whether there were any deletions made on each electronic device. If a person submitting an electronic device alleges that the electronic device in use at the relevant time is lost, broken, damaged, replaced or for any reason is no longer available, then all circumstances relating to such unavailability shall be explained in detail in the affidavit. Each person submitting an electronic device shall answer any questions posed by the £-Discovery company chosen by the Plaintiff, at the time of the turnover, such questions shall first be submitted to the District’s attorney for review. Each person in possession of each covered phone or electronic device shall personally turn over said electronic device or phone to the Plaintiffs £-Discovery Company and
shall answer any questions by the Plaintiffs E-Discovery Company required for said company to carry out the terms of this order, in addition to the affidavit required herein. The Court shall award attorney’s fees to the Plaintiff for the cost of bringing this action and a hearing shall be conducted to receive evidence on said cost on April 3. 2023. This hearing will be conducted via video conferencing unless objected to by either party.”
Here, the Judge showed tremendous courage in issuing a fair minded and well-reasoned opinion. Dr. Green is confident that once the order is complied with her employer should fairly settle her race discrimination claims and resolve this matter entirely.