[T]he Arlington-based Mack Molding is asking a judge to dismiss a wrongful termination lawsuit, saying that a former employee’s husband secretly recorded private phone calls and that her attorney abused the discovery process. The company also asked for the lawyer to be disqualified.
In a pleading to the Superior Court in Bennington filed last week, Mack Molding’s attorneys said Donald Gates, whose wife Angela Gates lost her job at the company in 2016, “surreptitiously and improperly recorded private intra-corporate communications between Mack Molding company officials,” including private conversations that involved the litigation.
“The secret recordings were not disclosed to the defendant,” despite requests for them, the lawyers said. Rather than disclose the recordings, Siobhan McCloskey, the lawyer for Angela and Donald Gates, “tried to use (them) to ambush and embarrass” a human resources director, Jessica Fredette, about a private conversation concerning the case, the document said.
At issue is Angela Gates’ 2016 lawsuit claiming Mack violated the Vermont Fair Employment Practices Act and Vermont Parental and Family Leave Act. The suit claims Mack carried out a “pattern of discrimination and retaliation” against her and other employees over several years.
Angela Gates worked for nearly 20 years as a molder and then as a finisher at Mack Molding, according to the complaint. The suit is based on a two-week leave of absence in 2013, which Angela Gates says she took without being informed by the company that she qualified for family medical leave benefits; and a knee injury that she said she sustained outside of work in 2015, resulting in a lingering injury.
The suit contends the company has “a deliberate and continuous pattern” of placing employees in more strenuous jobs as a act of discrimination or as retaliation for asserting such workers’ rights as filing a workers’ compensation complaint, requesting an accommodation on the job, or for taking medical leave.
The suit also accuses the manufacturer of gender discrimination, filling its lower-paying jobs with women, and offering its higher-paying and/or supervisory jobs to men.
And it claims the company has a pattern of wrongfully firing older workers and replacing them with younger workers. Angela Gates contends she was fired seven months prior to becoming eligible for a full pension and that others have been fired close to the date they would have been eligible for full retirement benefits.
In January 2018, Mack sought to have the suit dismissed, and denied all of Angela Gates’ allegations.
Donald Gates was fired in May, according to the company’s request for the dismissal of the case.
Mack director of communications Larry Hovish declined to comment on the lawsuit or the latest filing on Monday. Mack’s lawyer, Timothy Copeland, also declined. But Copeland emailed the company’s pleading.
“Vermont Rule of Civil Procedure 30(d)(3) provides that a deposition may be terminated when it is being conducted “in bad faith or in such as a manner as unreasonably to annoy, embarrass, or oppress the deponent….” the company said in the pleading filed last week. “The bad faith in this case is overwhelming. Plaintiff’s counsel obtained secret recordings from her client Mr. Gates. These recordings intercepted attorney-client privileged telephone discussions between corporate officials about the litigation, about how to respond to discovery requests, and about how defense counsel had advised Mack to respond to discovery requests.
“This conduct violates the Vermont Rules of Civil Procedure and the Vermont Rules of Professional Conduct.”
McCloskey did not return calls or emails Monday seeking comment.
The privately owned Mack Molding supplies contract manufacturing services and injection molded plastic parts. It says on its website that it has six plants. They are located in Arlington and Cavendish, Vermont; Statesville, North Carolina; Inman, South Carolina; Gardner, Massachusetts; and Woodbridge, Connecticut.
