Court Opinion

ID: 9945591
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-27 21:19:17.218155+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:25:33.250325
License: Public Domain

STATE OF VERMONT

            SUPERIOR COURT                                                                   CIVIL DIVISION
            Windsor Unit                    I
                                                                                        Docket No. 22-CV-493

            GARY ALIBOZEK,
                       Plaintiff

            V.

            NORMAN WATTS and WATTS LAW FIRM, P.C.,
                       Defendants

                                                DECISIONS ON PENDING MOTIONS

                    Plaintiﬂ' Gary Alibozek was represented by Defendant Norman Watts in an age
            discrimination case against his employer, General Electric Company.‘ Mr. Alibozek applied for
        -
            an open position and a younger employee who had worked at GE for less time was selected for
            the job. In that Underlying Case, summary judgment was granted to General Electric Company.
        i
            Mr. Alibozek now brings this suit against Mr. Watts and Watts Law Firm, P.C., 2 alleging several
            causes of action based on Mr. Watts’s representation of him in the Underlying Case against
        '

            General Electric.

                   The Amended Complaint sets forth four causes of action: Negligence/Legal Malpractice;
            Breach of Contract; Consumer Fraud; and Negligent Misrepresentation.
                                                                                                                     '

                   There are several pending motions in the case, including a Motion for Summary
            Judgment on all counts ﬁled by Defendant Watts. The motions are addressed in the order in
    _
            which they were ﬁled, except that the Motion for Summary Judgment is addressed last.

2
            Motion #7: Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel GE to respond to subpoena

                    Plaintiﬂ' sought discovery material from GE by informally sending a subpoena to a GE
i

            representative who had previously provided discovery in the Underlying Case from GE’s ﬁles
5

            without formal service. GE declined to provide the requested documents due to lack of proper
            service of the subpoena and also claimed that the request was unduly burdensome. Plaintiff’s
.           counsel seeks to compel production of the documents without service of the subpoena, claiming
E
            that formal service would add time and expense. GE is not a party to this lawsuit, and any prior
i           agreement in the Underlying Case regarding modes of making and responding to discovery '

            requests does not apply.

            1
                Alibozek v. General Electric Company, 270-5-17 Rdcv, hereinafter described as the Underlying Case.
            2
                Hereinafter the term Watts will refer to both Mr. Norman Watts and Watts Law Firm, P.C.

                                                                       1
       Plaintiff’s counsel also sought personnel records of employees without requesting the
addresses of those employees to give them notice as required by l6 V.S.A. §l69la(c), and sought
numerous records going back several years in time, which GE claimed would be unduly
burdensome. Plaintiff has shortened the retroactive date to 10 years based on the understanding
that GE keeps records for 10 years.

        The court denies the motion for several reasons. Plaintiff’s counsel failed to properly
serve the subpoena and seek the addresses of employees in a timely manner within the pretrial
scheduling order. Moreover, the court concludes that a large volume of material was requested
that constituted a much more burdensome request than the single personnel ﬁle thatGE had
previously agreed to provide without service of subpoena.

        Perhaps most important is that there is no showing that the significant volume of material
sought, some of which is very dated, even if it had been timely requested, would be within the
scope of discoverable material pursuant to V.R.C.P. 26 (b), which allows discovery “relevant to
any party’s claim or defense and proportional t0 the needs of the case, considering the
importance of the issues at stake. .and whether the burden or expense of the proposed discovery
                                   .-

outweighs its likely benefit.” Mr. Alibozek was denied promotion to the position for which he
applied in December of 2014. Plaintiff has not explained how documents from 10 years prior to
that date, relating to other employees, would be relevant to the critical issue of whether the
reason given for the decision not to promote Mr. Alibozek was a pretext.

      For these reasons, the motion is denied, and thereis no reason to delay ruling on
Defendant’s motion for summary judgment.

Motion #9: GE’s Motion for a Protective Order
       This request was essentially a motion to quash made by GE in its Opposition to the
Motion to Compel GE to comply with the subpoena described above. For the reasons stated
above, the Plaintiff ’s motion has been denied. GE’s motion is therefore moot.

Motion #10: Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel the Attorney General’s Office to Allow Forensic
Audit
         Mr. Alibozek and his wife contend that they listened to audio recordings provided by the
Attorney General’s Ofﬁce in the Underlying Case, that she took noteson what was said, and that
_a portion of what they listened to contained a heated argument that is no longer on the audio ﬁle.

Plaintiff’s counsel seeks to have a forensic expert examine the original ﬁle at the Attorney
General’s Ofﬁce. The attorney for the State contends that they had their own forensic audit done
which showed no missing portion of the interview.

        The starting point 0f the analysis is that the written notes kept by Mr. Alibozek’s wife as
she listened to the interview, in particular the format she used of identifying what was said by
what speakers as identiﬁed by initials, suggest the possibility that there may be a missing section

                                                  2
    of the interview. Thus, if there were a showing that the alleged missing portion actually
    contained material pertinent to Plaintiff’s claim of pretext, the court would consider granting the
    request for Plaintiff to engage an independent forensic audit. The court assumes the accuracy of
    the Alibozeks’ contention of the content of the missing material. However, there has been no
    reasonable showing that the alleged missing portion of the interview contained content relevant
    under the standard of V.R.C.P. 26 (b) to Plaintiff ’s claim in this malpractice case. Thus, the delay,
    use of parties’ time, and expense of the requested forensic audit is not justified. The motion is
    denied.

    Motion #12: Plaintiff’s Motion for a Final Protective Order

         Plaintiff previously ﬁled a Motion for Protective Order, Motion #5 (corrected as Motion
 #6), in response to a subpoena Defendant served on special disciplinary counsel for production
 of communications from Plaintiff ’s counsel related to an independent professional responsibility
 disciplinary proceeding. Plaintiff’s counsel claimed that her communications to special
 disciplinary counsel were protected attorney work product. In a ruling issued October 17, 2023,
 the court denied the motion without prejudice to refile, speciﬁcally providing that “if the motion
'is reﬁled, speciﬁc attention is requested as to the provision of an adequate basis for
gdetermination of the applicability of the privilege.”
         Motion #12 is Plaintiff’s reﬁling of the request. In the motion, Plaintiff claims that the
 information in the communication was a “matter of common interest” between herself and
 special disciplinary counsel and thus could be shared with an attorney with'a common interest
:while retaining its character as Plaintiff’s attorney work product.

V
            The court concludes that the purposes, standards, and procedures of a tort case and a
    professional responsibility disciplinary proceeding are distinct, and attorneys working on the two
    different cases do not have the type of “common interest” that allows sharing of information
    while retaining the beneﬁts of the attorney work product privilege. Thus the motion is denied.

    Motion #14: Plaintiff’s Motion to Approve a Third Amended ADR Schedule

         Critical discovery deadlines had already passed before this motion was ﬁled. See Order
fof April 18, 2023. Nojustification has been shown for retroactively extending discovery
ideadlines, nor has any valid reason been shown that further discovery is needed before
 consideration of Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment. The motion is denied.
    Motion #15: Plaintiff’s Motion for Sur—reply (to Defendants’ Reply in Support of Summary
    Judgment Motion)
            The court concludes that the content of Defendant’s Reply did not raise new issues or
    arguments not previously identiﬁed by Defendant, and that Plaintiff was therefore not deprived
    of a chance to address pertinent arguments. Thus, the motion is denied.

    .Motion #8: Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment

             Breach 0f Contract Claim. In a legal malpractice case based on attorney representation
    in litigation, in order to prove negligence and damages, the plaintiff is obliged to prove that if the
    attorney had not been negligent in conducting the Underlying Case, the plaintiﬁ would have
    prevailed. Thus such a plaintiff has to prove a “case within a case.” In the summary judgment
    ruling in the Underlying Case, the court dismissed Count I for breach of implied contract because
    as a matter of law, no implied contract was created that was breached by GE, and dismissed
    Count II for breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing because no conduct was
     alleged separate from breach of contract. The Judgment was not appealed. Plaintiff concedes that
     the same result would be required in this case on those issues. Thus, summary judgment is
    ,granted to Defendants on the Breach of Contract claim in this case.

            Consumer Protection Claim. Defendants argue that Plaintiff does not have a consumer
    fraud claim under the Vermont Consumer Protection Act because any representations made by
.Attomey Watts were not made to the consumer public at large in the consumer marketplace, but
iwere part of private representation agreements between Mr. Alibozek and Mr. Watts, citing Foti
iFuels, Inc. v. Kurrle Corp, 2013 VT 111. Plaintiff, in his responsive memorandum of law, claims
'that more discovery is needed. However, there is no showing of what more discovery is needed.
.The court concludes that the analysis relied on by Defendant based on Foti Fuels is on point and
;
 persuasive. Thus, summaryjudgment is granted to Defendants on the Consumer Fraud claim.

          Negligent Misrepresentation Claim. Defendants argue that Plaintiff ’s allegations as to
 this claim are the same as those for the consumer fraud claim, and that they do not satisfy the
 required elements of a negligent misrepresentation claim as set forth in Howard v. Usiak, 172 Vt.
 227, 230-231 (2001) because Plaintiff has not identiﬁed factual, actionable misrepresentations.
Plaintiff responded simply, “Attorney Watts had a duty to inform Plaintiff of his conflict of
 interest, as per the Rules of Professional conduct.” This is insufﬁcient to show speciﬁc facts in
support of the elements of a negligent misrepresentation claim as set forth in Howard v. Usiak:
            One who, in the course of his business, profession or employment, or in any other
            transaction in which he has a pecuniary interest, supplies false information for the
            guidance of others in their business transactions, is subject to liability for
            pecuniary loss caused to them by their justiﬁable reliance upon the information, if
            he fails to exercise reasonable care or competence in obtaining or communicating
            the information.
    Id. at 230-231.
       While Plaintiff has identiﬁed a failure to disclose a conﬂict of interest as a
misrepresentation, speciﬁcally lacking is any evidence that the identiﬁed
misrepresentation was the cause of pecuniary loss to Plaintiff. Without such evidence,
summaryjudgment must be granted to Defendants on the Negligent Misrepresentation
claim.

        Age Discrimination Claim. The age discrimination claim is the heart of this case, and is
the “case within a case” that Plaintiff would have to prove in order to prevail in this lawsuit. In
the summary judgment ruling in the Underlying Case, the court concluded that Plaintiff had met
thevburden of establishing a prima facie case of age discrimination based on the evidence that the
age difference between Mr. Alibozek and the person selected for the position was enough to meet
the burden because there was a nine year difference in age and the person selected was the
youngest candidate of the four interviewed. The burden then shifted to GE to show a legitimate
nondiscriminatory reason for its decision to hire the younger candidate. The court concluded that
GE had met its burden to produce a legitimate nondiscriminatory reason, which was that the
younger candidate’s job and interview performance were superior to Mr. Alibozek’s.
        The burden then shifted to Plaintiff to show that GE’s reasons were a pretext for age
discrimination. The court in the Underlying Case concluded that the allegations of pretext were
allegations only, and that Mr. Alibozek “failed to produce any credible evidence tending to show
that GE’s reason for not hiring him was pretextual.” Thus, in this case of legal malpractice
against Defendant Watts, Plaintiff would need to prove (a) that there was sufficient evidence to
show pretext, (b) that Mr. Watts failed to provide it to the court, and (c) that if he had, Plaintiff
would have prevailed in the Underlying Case.
        Defendant Watts alleges in the Motion for Summary Judgment in this case that Plaintiﬁ
“has no relevant evidence beyond those submitted to the court in the Underlying Case to support
his allegation of pretext.” Defendant’s Statement of Undisputed Facts, 11 23. Plaintiff denied this
paragraph and submitted a “Supplemental Statement of Disputed Facts (Disputed by Watts
and/or GE)” consisting of 20 paragraphs with references to 18 supporting exhibits.

        The court has examined Plaintiff’s proposed disputed facts and all supporting exhibits t0
determine whether there is admissible evidence from whichjurors could infer discrimination on
the basis of age, keeping in mind that such evidence is likely to be circumstantial. The issue is
Whether there is circumstantial (or direct) evidence from which jurors could conclude that the
actual basis for GE’s hiring decision was age discrimination, and that its stated reason was only a
pretext.
        There is evidence that Mr. Alibozek was described by one member of the interview panel
as “not a leader and scattered.” (Exhibit 10 to Plaintiff’s Statement of Disputed Facts, Deposition
of Mr. Alibozek, page 105.) Such characteristics could be descriptive of many people regardless
of age. Mr. Alibozek testiﬁed that he “heard one of the people on the tape say that you got to run
all day long and Jim [chosen candidate] is the man and that something to the effect that I
couldn’t do that. . .” (Exhibit 9 to Plaintiff’s Statement of Disputed Facts, Deposition of Mr.

                                                  ‘5
    Alibozek, page 90.) It appears that this would be oﬁ'ered to prove that the interview panel passed
    Mr. Alibozek over in favor of a younger man because Mr. Alibozek would not be able to “run all
    day long,” suggesting age discrimination. However, as offered it is inadmissible hearsay and thus      u

    cannot be relied on as admissible evidence creating a dispute of fact on the issue of pretext. Mr.
‘

    Alibozek claims that there was no one from HR in the interview, which was a departure from
    usual practice, and that corporate counsel sat in, thereby intimidating people. Even if these were
    departures from usual practice and true, they do not constitute a sufﬁcient basis to infer that age
    discrimination was the reason for the employment decision.
            These items of evidence are the most pertinent to the issue of pretext. Looked at in the
    light most  favorable to Mr. Alibozek, they do not constitute a sufﬁcient circumstantial basis upon
    :which the jury could conclude that the reason that the younger man, another GE employee who
    had training suitable to the job, was hired over Mr. Alibozek based on age discrimination.

            After careful review of the Plaintiff’s proposed facts, the court is unable to conclude that
    there is suﬁicient evidence from which a jury could ﬁnd that GE’s stated reason for its selection
    was a pretext, and that the real reason was age discrimination. Therefore, Plaintiff does not have
    sufficient evidence to prove his claim, and the Defendant’s summary judgment motion must be
    granted.

                                           Summary and Orders

              The following motions are denied: ## 7, 10, 12, 14, and 15.
                                                   i

    t
              Motion # 9 is moot.

    1
          Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment (#8) is granted, and the court has issued
    Judgment this day.

    Electronically signed February 16, 2024 pursuant to V.R.E.F. 9 (d).

            ”“51
    Mary Miles Teachout                        \

    Superior Judge (Ret.), Specially Assigned

        1
                Vermont Superior Court
                        Filed o2/2o/_24
                          Windsor Unit
        t

        ‘

        l