Here's how the City Manager avoids a deposition

By Scott Zoback

"Your scope of deposition inquiry for Mr. O'Brien is wholly irrelevant to this case. The City of Worcester is well within its rights to decline to make Mr. O'Brien available on Monday morning, and will exercise its right to do so."

— Letter from city attorney John T. Graff to
attorney Daniel J. Shea.

It's a lawyer's way of saying, "get bent."
That's about all the city of Worcester offered attorney Daniel Shea in his most recent attempt to go after Dr. Stephen Willand, the City of Worcester, and the Office of Employment and Training. According to documents obtained by Worcester Magazine, Shea and the city (and outside counsel Mirick O'Connell) are engaged in yet another catfight over discrimination complaints, the latest in a long line.

Michael O’Brien

In a Feb. 8 letter addressed to Assistant City Solicitor Lisa Carmody, Shea requests the several depositions and states, "If we are at the point here where you have any objections to either the discovery requests or their depositions, I suggest we immediately have a discovery conference and ... get rulings on any unresolved objections."

Over the next month, Shea unsuccessfully attempted to finalize a date for the depositions; his letters to the city indicate a growing frustration, culminating with a March 6 letter that attempted to set up a resolution conference with MCAD.

But it was the city's official response on March 16 that really established the harsh tone. The letter, written by outside counsel John Graff, states that two days earlier, an Emergency Motion for Protective Order had been filed with MCAD to prevent the deposition, but as no hearing was scheduled, "Mr. O'Brien will not be available for deposition on Monday.

"Mr. O'Brien is not a relevant witness and your deposing him poses an undue burden on the City to make him available where he has no personal knowledge of the events in question." The letter goes on to state that some of Shea's "indicated" questioning was "far outside the scope of the pending matter" and accuses him of attempting to question O'Brien to prove Shea's own beliefs as to what the law should be.

"You have also indicated that you wish to question Mr. O'Brien regarding the City's spending of federal money and your belief that such spending is inconsistent with the federal statutory behind such grants. As you know, this is an action for discrimination, not an action for interpretation of federal law...[or] of state civil service statutes."

The letter from Attorney Graff closes stating that Shea's plans to "take a no show" of the deposition "is inconsistent with the spirit of cooperatively resolving this matter utilizing less burdensome means of discovery. Finally, based on [the attempt] to depose the City Manager regarding irrelevant material ... the city believes the deposition is merely an attempt to harass the city."

As with any case involving Shea, MCAD and Willand, there's a lot of backstory. We've written about Shea's various battles with Office of Employment and Training in the past: In our March 9, 2006 issue we reported that the city paid $135,000 to settle a sexual harassment claim and lawsuit filed by Edward Gagne: "The claims in the case were that Stephen Willand, the Catholic head of the city's Office of Employment and Training, wrongfully denied a promotion to an employee, Edward Gagne, who had sued the Catholic Church for alleged sexual abuse by priests. The case also claimed that Willand had sexually harassed Gagne." And in a follow up article in Sept. 2006, we reported that "Willand [allegedly] intentionally retaliated against Youth Coordinator Edward Gagne in response to an earlier harassment complaint filed with MCAD."

As for this case, Shea now indicates that the legal battle over whether Shea can even take O'Brien's deposition is ongoing, and working its way through the legal process.

Attorney Graff did not return a call for comment on deadline.