Case: 1:11-cv Document #: 104 Filed: 07/11/13 Page 1 of 8 PageID #:953

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1 Case: 1:11-cv Document #: 104 Filed: 07/11/13 Page 1 of 8 PageID #:953 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS EASTERN DIVISION U.S. EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION, v. Plaintiff, SOURCE ONE STAFFING, INC. No. 11-cv-6754 Judge Dow Magistrate Judge Gilbert Defendant. EEOC S SUBMISSION REGARDING ALLEGED WITNESS TAMPERING BY DEFENDANT AND/OR ITS COUNSEL Two former employees of Source One Staffing, Inc. ( Source One or Defendant ) have recently testified under oath that Source One s owner/president and its attorney instructed them to falsify information regarding its referral practices at issue in this case. If these allegations of witness tampering are true, Source One and/or its attorney may have already tainted the testimony of every relevant witness in this case. These allegations strike at the heart of the judicial system, a system dependent on accurate and truthful discovery. EEOC believes that the Court must be informed of these developments and take any and all actions it deems appropriate. FACTUAL BACKGROUND In this case, EEOC alleges that Source One has failed or refused to refer employees for certain job assignments because of their sex from January 1, 2007 to the present. See Dkt. No. 1 ( Complaint ) at 9(b) (d). EEOC filed the Complaint on September 26, Id. Prior to filing the instant lawsuit, on May 24, 2011, EEOC issued Letters of Determination ( LODs ) finding reasonable cause to believe that Source One violated Title VII. 1

2 Case: 1:11-cv Document #: 104 Filed: 07/11/13 Page 2 of 8 PageID #:954 EEOC allegations in this case are based, in part, on direct evidence that Source One used an Employee Request Form that categorizes jobs as male, female, or either and assigned thousands of employees according to these facially discrimination classifications. See Exhibit 1. EEOC has also uncovered evidence that Source One catered to discriminatory, sex-specific requests from its clients via . See Exhibit 2. Mr. Elliot Wiczer is an attorney of record for Source One, and he has represented the company for several years prior to EEOC filing this lawsuit. Mr. Scott Reedy is Source One s president and owner. At his deposition on May 31, 2013, Angel Cardoso, a former Source One customer service representative, testified that it was Source One s policy to assign employees based on sex as evidenced by the company s Employee Request Forms which record whether a client asked for male[s], female[s], or either. Angel Cardoso Dep. (attached hereto as Exhibit 3) at pp. 12:15-19:3. Mr. Cardoso also testified that Mr. Wiczer instructed him to say, if asked, that he circled male, female, or either only after deciding which employees to assign. Id. at pp. 19:8-27:10. Mr. Cardoso was given this instruction in 2011, well after Source One was put on notice of EEOC s investigation into Source One s discriminatory referral practices. 1 Id. Mr. Cardoso testified that he knew this explanation of the Employee Request Form s facially discriminatory language was untrue. Id. at 20:3-8, 24:6-7. He also testified that he believes that Source One s attorney knew this explanation was false. Id. at 24:20-25:1, 25:8-14. At her deposition on June 26, 2013, Jennifer Buzo, another former customer service representative, testified that despite Defendant removing the male, female or either portion 1 Mr. Cardoso did not specify when in 2011 Mr. Wiczer gave him the instructions regarding the form. Even if it was before the EEOC issued its LODs in May 2011, by that time Source One and Mr. Wiczer were already aware that EEOC was investigating the forms. In December 2009, Source One filed a petition to revoke an EEOC administrative subpoena (authored by Mr. Wiczer) requesting all of Source One s Employee Request Forms on the ground that the forms were not relevant to the underlying charges. Source One subsequently agreed to produce its Employee Request Forms in June 2010 and enclosed a cover letter, signed by Mr. Wiczer, disputing the obvious implication of the Male/Female/Either line. See Exhibit 7. 2

3 Case: 1:11-cv Document #: 104 Filed: 07/11/13 Page 3 of 8 PageID #:955 of the Employee Request Form, it was still company practice to assign employees on the basis of the sex-specific requests of its clients. Jennifer Buzo Dep. (attached hereto as Exhibit 4) at pp. 29:14-33:11. Moreover, Ms. Buzo testified that Mr. Reedy told her that if she received a sex-specific request from a client she was to honor that request. Id. at 30:21-31:23. Mr. Reedy also instructed her not to document the sex-specific request, but to instead take a mental note of the request. Id. Later, Mr. Reedy, in the presence of Mr. Wiczer, told Ms. Buzo that if asked by the EEOC about the company s practices, she was to state that Source One does not assign employees on the basis of sex. In other words, Mr. Reedy instructed Ms. Buzo to make representations to the EEOC which he knew were not true. Ms. Buzo testified that she understood that Mr. Reedy was asking her to lie about Source One s employee referral practices, but she did not speak up because she was afraid of losing her job. Id. at 28:11-29:5. Moreover, Ms. Buzo testified that Mr. Reedy and Mr. Wiczer instructed her not to talk to EEOC about Source One s practice of assigning employees on the basis of their sex. Id. at 131:15-131:23; 133:23-134:6. According to Ms. Buzo, Mr. Reedy and Mr. Wiczer gave her these instructions even though they knew that it was Source One s practice to assign jobs based on the sex-specific employee requests of its clients. Id. at Buzo Dep. at 25:9-26:17; 29:14-30:16; 125:23-127:14; 131:15-135:14; 137:7-139:8. EEOC has reason to believe that Mr. Reedy and/or Mr. Wiczer had similar meetings with nearly all of the other employees at Source One. Cardoso Dep. at 12:15-20:15. Although EEOC does not currently know the substance of those individual meetings, based on Ms. Buzo and Mr. Cardoso s testimony as well as Source One legal strategy in this case, it is entirely possible, if not likely, that all of Source One s other employees were given similar instructions to misrepresent facts to the EEOC. 3

4 Case: 1:11-cv Document #: 104 Filed: 07/11/13 Page 4 of 8 PageID #:956 Source One appears to be mounting a defense predicated on the fact that the Employee Request Forms do not mean what they say. Source One now claims that the Employee Request Forms were used to document who was sent to the client company only after the assignments had been made. For instance, in 2012, EEOC deposed two other customer service representatives in this case, Gabriella Muñoz and Guadalupe Ojeda. Both women were still working at Source One at the time of their depositions. Ms. Muñoz testified that she circled male, female, or either based on who Source One assigned to fill a job opening: We circle that depend[ing] on who we place. If we place [a] male or a female. Gabriela Muñoz Dep. (attached hereto as Exhibit 5) at 172:16-22; see also id. at 175:14-15 ( We only or I only circle that after I filled the order. ). Similarly, Ms. Ojeda testified that she did not circle male, female, or either until she finished filling an order. Guadalupe Ojeda Dep. (attached hereto as Exhibit 6) at 147:6 151:3. How, why and when Source One completed these forms are material to Source One s defense. Consequently, if what Mr. Cardoso and Ms. Buzo were told to lie about is accepted by the fact-finder, the company could potentially escape liability. REPORTING OBLIGATIONS The testimony described above raises serious questions about unethical or even criminal conduct by Source One s owner and/or its attorney. EEOC cannot ignore allegations that threaten the integrity of the legal profession and the civil discovery process. With respect to the allegations against Mr. Wiczer, EEOC s attorneys have an obligation to inform the appropriate disciplinary authority about possible attorney misconduct. Pursuant to Rule 8.3(a) of the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct, attorneys have an obligation to report to the Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission ( ARDC ) when they have reason to believe that another attorney has committed a violation of Rule 8.4(c) by engaging in an act of dishonesty, fraud, 4

5 Case: 1:11-cv Document #: 104 Filed: 07/11/13 Page 5 of 8 PageID #:957 deceit or misrepresentation. Pursuant to this obligation, the EEOC Trial Attorney who deposed Mr. Cardoso and Ms. Buzo has requested that the ARDC investigate Mr. Wiczer s conduct. In addition, this Court has inherent authority to investigate and sanction unethical conduct by a party and/or its attorneys. These powers are governed not by rule or statute but by the control necessarily vested in courts to manage their own affairs so as to achieve the orderly and expeditious disposition of cases. Chambers v. NASCO, Inc., 501 U.S. 32, 43 (1991) (quoting Link v. Wabash R.R. Co., 370 U.S. 626, (1962)); Diettrich v. Northwest Airlines, Inc., 168 F.3d 961, 964 (7th Cir.1999) (inherent powers permit a court to impose the ultimate sanction of a grant of judgment. ). The opinion in Quela v. Payco-General American Creditas, Inc. and OSI, Inc. ( OSI ), 2000 WL (N.D. Ill. May 18, 2000) (Castillo, J) provides a useful roadmap as to how the Court should investigate and address the allegations of Mr. Cardoso and Ms. Buzo. In OSI, the plaintiff submitted an affidavit of an employee of the defendant declaring that she was coerced by management to provide false statements and deposition testimony. The district court then invited briefing on the issue and held an evidentiary hearing on the alleged misconduct. The district court found that OSI s management had in fact coerced fraudulent statements and deposition testimony of the employee. Due to the seriousness of the findings, the district court entered default judgment pursuant its powers under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37. Id. The conduct alleged by Mr. Cardoso and Ms. Buzo is arguably more egregious than the conduct at issue in OSI. In OSI, the false statements and coerced testimony were suborned by a manager trying to shield the company from liability. The allegations here involve misconduct from the head of the company as well as the company s attorney. Mr. Reedy, as owner and president of Source One, is the company s alter-ego, and the company is accountable for his actions. See e.g., Johnson v. West, 218 F.3d 725, 730 (7th Cir. 2000) ( [The Supreme Court in Faragher v. City of Boca 5

6 Case: 1:11-cv Document #: 104 Filed: 07/11/13 Page 6 of 8 PageID #:958 Raton, 524 U.S. 775, 789 (1998)] suggests that the following officials may be treated as an employer s proxy: a president, owner, proprietor, partner, corporate officer, or supervisor hold[ing] a sufficiently high position in the management hierarchy of the company for his actions to be imputed automatically to the employer. ) (emphasis added). Moreover, in OSI, the court found that the company tampered with only one witness. The allegations here are far broader than that. Not only did two former employees testify that they were told by Source One s owner and/or attorney to give false statements regarding the allegations in this case, but that most, if not all, of Source One s other employees may have been given similar instructions. Cardoso Dep. at 12:15-20:15. This suggests that the testimony of many, if not all, relevant witnesses in the case may have already been tainted. Mr. Cardoso and Ms. Buzo s testimony also explains why the deposition testimony of two current Source One employees was so nonsensical. 2 In addition to claiming that they filled out the male, female or either section of the Employee Request Form after the job assignments were made, the employees were unable to explain what the word either meant on the form. For instance, Ms. Ojeda testified that the word either really meant both, meaning that employees circled either to indicate that the company had sent both male and female employees to the client company. However, when asked about why she circled the word either on multiple forms where Source One assigned only one employee, Ms. Ojeda s responded by claiming that she must have made repeated mistakes in filling out the form. Ojeda Dep. at 155:12-157:8 Ms. Qjeda has worked at Source One since Id. at 14: There are only two logical explanations for her testimony: 1) she has been making the same inexplicable mistake in filling out a simple form for the better half of a decade; or 2) she was not being forthright in her deposition. 2 Mr. Cardoso and Ms. Buzo no longer work for Source One and were less fearful of being retaliated against for not following Mr. Reedy or Mr. Wiczer s instructions. In contrast, Ms. Ojeda and Ms. Muñoz were still employed by Source One at the time of their depositions and would likely be more susceptible to giving coerced testimony for fear of losing their jobs. 6

7 Case: 1:11-cv Document #: 104 Filed: 07/11/13 Page 7 of 8 PageID #:959 Prior to Mr. Cardoso and Ms. Buzo s depositions, EEOC may have strongly suspected the latter, but it had no reason to believe that Source One or its agents had anything to do with this her incongruous testimony. After Mr. Cardoso and Ms. Buzo s testimony, however, there is now a straightforward explanation her testimony employees were instructed by Source One and/or its agent to provide false information to EEOC. CONCLUSION Mr. Cardoso and Ms. Buzo s allegations are very serious and call into question the conduct of both Source One s owner and its attorney. If the allegations are proven true, Source One not only irreparably prejudiced EEOC s ability to prosecute this case, but its actions threaten to stain the sanctity of the judicial system and civil discovery process. EEOC has an obligation to bring such serious allegations to the Court s attention. EEOC, therefore, respectfully presents these facts to the Court and requests that the Court take whatever action it deems appropriate. Dated: July 11, 2013 Respectfully submitted, /s/ Grayson S. Walker Grayson S. Walker Trial Attorney /s/ Aaron R. DeCamp Aaron R. DeCamp Trial Attorney U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission 500 W. Madison St., Suite 2000 Chicago, Illinois (312)

8 Case: 1:11-cv Document #: 104 Filed: 07/11/13 Page 8 of 8 PageID #:960 CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE I, Aaron R. DeCamp, an attorney, hereby certify that I caused a copy of EEOC s Submission Regarding the Alleged Tampering of Witnesses by Defendant and/or its Attorney to be served on the following counsel of record for the Defendant, Source One Staffing, Inc., on July11, 2013 via the Court s electronic filing system: Elliot S. Wiczer (ewiczer@fflegal.com) John M. Sheldon (jsheldon@fflegal.com) Foreman Friedman, PA 500 Skokie Blvd., Suite 325 Northbrook, IL Respectfully submitted, /s/ Aaron R. DeCamp Aaron DeCamp Trial Attorney U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission 500 W. Madison St., Suite 2000 Chicago, IL (312)