Dirty Tricks Employers Use in Discovery and Other #EEOC Tips

Video Description

This video covers a few important deadlines and rules to look out for, and some tricks employers use in the pre-hearing discovery at EEOC.  This stuff applies directly to the federal sector. In the private sector, it may be a different, but it’s still helpful to be aware of the dirty tricks, in case your employer tries any of them. After we request our hearing, the timelines get more complicated. Your AJ's first order is going to lay out all the issues that’ll be addressed in your hearing, as well as the timeline and rules for all your pre-hearing activity, including discovery. Chances are, your employer held back some information that should have gone into your Report of Investigation, but didn’t. You may still need that information to prove your case.   Discovery is your chance to get it.    Deadline 1: Requesting Discovery Pro se plaintiffs don’t always know that they have the right to request discovery, or they don’t know how, or when.  Those answers should one spelled out in your AJ’s initial order. Deadline 2: Completing Discovery  After both requests are made, you and your employer each have a certain amount of time to complete discovery, by providing everything the other side requested.  Deadline 3: Motion to Compel If the other side wasn’t responsive to your discovery requests, you can file a Motion to Compel, essentially asking your AJ to order them to provide the information you asked for.  Your motion will probably have to explain how the information you asked for could make the difference between winning or losing your case, and spell out exactly how your employer’s response fell short.  You may also have to have multiple conferences with the Agency’s attorney and complete some others steps before you file your motion. ALL. BEFORE. THE. DEADLINE! Most employers will give you some discovery information, loaded with dirty tricks. There are few common ones: 1.  Flooding. Your employer may give you a HUGE data dump. There might be so much data that you don’t even notice some of the information you need to prove your case is still missing from it, until it’s too late to file your motion to compel. You need a sound strategy for quickly sorting out which bits of data are meaningful to your case. Then you can look more closely at that smaller subset of relevant data, to make sure you have ALL the information you need. 2.  Scrambling. Your employer may give you everything you asked for, in one big unsorted pile. It’s all there, but you have to figure out which of the documents in that huge pile correspond to each of your discovery requests. This trick is more commonly used on pro se plaintiffs than those of us with attorneys. An attorney is gonna know that discovery has to be provided in a certain format, with Bates numbers. https://www.investintech.com/resources/blog/archives/7829-bates-numbering-101-history-usage-and-tutorial.html 3. Silent Treatment AJ’s orders often include rules that say we have to try to work out discovery issues out with the opposing attorney prior to filing a Motion to Compel. This practice is meant to encourage the parties to cooperate.    It sounds good, but some employers take advantage of it, by making it nearly impossible for you to complete all the conferences that your AJ requires in the time you have left. If they succeed in running out the clock, you want to be able to prove what they did to your AJ. Document every attempt you make to comply with your AJ’s rules, and every attempt by the Agency to delay. It can be hard to jump through all these hoops and get your discovery, but the good news is that your employer has to jump through these same hoops. So they can screw up too. My AJ ruled that NASA”s request was untimely, and I didn’t owe them ANY discovery. NOTHING! So take notice. Every deadline and rule in your AJ’s order counts. If you violate your AJ’s order, you’re screwed. No matter who you are! Track your deadlines. Know your rules. Hold yourself AND your employer accountable. If nothing else, it can keep your employer from taking advantage of your inexperience. You could even get lucky like I did… and your employer’s inexperience might bite them instead. ---- All opinions are my own. Not LEGAL advice. Just me sharing my perspective as an employee who went through the EEOC claims process & won. I am not an expert at all things EEOC. While I do my best to be factual in my observations, viewers should assume that all observations or statements are ALLEGEDLY. *Never trust your fate to a YouTube content creator. Do your own research, pilot your own vessel. * --- Background photo on thumb courtesy of searchable NASA Image Library: https://images.nasa.gov/