Editor's note: This is the second installment in a series of articles focusing on employment litigation filed by court employees in Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania's largest court system—the First Judicial District, in Philadelphia—has a policy of destroying financial records of settlements for employment-related claims after seven years, an investigation by The Legal Intelligencer has revealed, leading to questions from government transparency advocates over the system's openness.

That was one of several revelations from settlement records and court documents obtained through numerous public information requests that shed light on the difficulties some Pennsylvania court employees have faced in getting redress for grievances.

In the first part of this series, records showed that six of Pennsylvania's largest court systems paid out nearly $1.3 million to settle the nearly 30 claims that court employees raised since 2008.

The Legal obtained the settlement records through the Pennsylvania Rules of Judicial Administration Rule 509, rather than the Right-to-Know Law, which applies only to state and legislative agencies. Rule 509 provides for access to judicial agency records, but it is somewhat more restrictive than the RTKL, and only allows the public access to financial records.

Five of the six judicial districts contacted with 509 requests for this series responded promptly within the 30-day timeframe outlined under Rule 509. The only exception was Philadelphia's First Judicial District, which took more than eight months to respond in full.

The FJD at first rejected the request within the 30-day timeframe, but, after The Legal appealed, counsel for the FJD reviewed the exchange and determined that it never fully responded to the inquiry. Counsel for the FJD further reviewed the request for another month, before determining that the settlement records should be made available.

The records, however, were not immediately produced. The Legal made numerous follow-up inquiries about when the information would be made available, and was told at one point that “some of the files were destroyed, according to protocol, and others had to be retrieved from storage.”

Five months after the appeal was granted the court produced a list of seven payout records that had been made while the claims were still before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Those settlements ranged from $800 to $26,000, and went back as far as spring 2008. The response again noted that “the financial records were destroyed.”

However, nearly one month later, the court forwarded five additional settlement agreements, all of which involved cases that had been filed in court.

RELATED STORY: Pa.'s Biggest Courts Spent Nearly $1.3M to Resolve Discrimination, Harassment Suits Over Past Decade

FJD spokesman Gabriel Roberts said in an emailed statement that the delay was largely due to the court having disposed some of the records pursuant to the court's records retention policy, which mandates that the records be maintained only for seven years. He said the court had to pull archived litigation files and manually review them to determine if they were responsive.

“We also consulted with other city and state entities in order to produce the financial records we ultimately provided,” Roberts said. “We expect that any requests for more current financial records will be provided within the 30-day period permitted by Rule 509.”

Employment attorney Patricia Pierce of Greenblatt, Pierce, Funt & Flores, who has represented employees with claims against the court, said the process she has gone through to obtain settlement records has been problematic, and that the court should have to hold onto records.

“The hurdles that they make you go through are really pretty appalling. I would like to see a sustained effort by the plaintiffs bar and also by the media because I think the public does have a right to know,” she said.

Nauman Smith attorney Craig Staudenmaier, who focuses on the Right-to-Know Law, however, said he thought seven years was a reasonable amount of time for an agency to be required to hold onto a financial record.

“The judiciary is only required to release financial information. Even in the best of all worlds, let's assume they kept them for 30 years, all you'd be able to get is financial documents,” Staudenmaier said, adding that any changes to the scope of Rule 509 would have to come from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

Behind the Settlements

According to the numbers, the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas paid out the most to resolve employment disputes, paying $451,510 over the past 10 years in connection with eight claims that were filed. Two of those claims resolved at the EEOC phase.

The biggest payout from that court came in a pay discrimination suit lodged by two case managers, Andrea Dodasovich and Christine McKelvey, who claimed they were systematically paid less because they were women.

According to the lawsuit, filed initially in the Allegheny Court of Common Pleas, when the women complained, court officials acknowledged the discrepancy, but instead of offering to fix the pay gap, the officials “offered plaintiffs discounted parking, sixteen hours of compensatory time and a warm 'thank-you' for a job well done.” That case settled for $94,000.

The Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts, which was defense counsel in the case, along with several others outlined in this series, declined to comment about the litigations. The plaintiffs' attorney also did not return a call seeking comment.

The Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas paid $326,000 to resolve 12 cases over the past decade, according to the records provided.

The largest settlement out of Philadelphia involved an African-American tipstaff who worked for former Judge Thomas Nocella.

According to court documents, the man, Ali Khan, had worked for Nocella in Municipal Court, but, after Nocella was elected to the Court of Common Pleas, the court refused to hire the man because of a felony he had on his record. Khan alleged violations of Title VII, the Civil Rights Act, the 14th Amendment and the PHRA. The case settled in federal court for $79,000.

Philadelphia attorney Armando Pandola, who represented Khan, said the suit stood for the proposition that courts have to follow the same rules as other employers.

“You're talking about a crime that was 25, 30 years old,” he said. “The courts are subject to the same rules and regulations as other employers.”

The First Judicial District declined to comment about individual cases.

Only one court system responded that it did not have any responsive documents to The Legal's request. That was the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas.

The Bucks County Court of Common Pleas only settled two cases in the past 10 years, according to court records, but in total it agreed to pay $223,750 to resolve the cases.

The cases, both of which were examined in the first part of this series, were Amoroso v. Bucks County, which involved a domestic relations employee who was allegedly sexually harassed by a superior, and Frederick v. County of Bucks, which stemmed from a First Amendment retaliation claim by an employee who reported that a judge had been smoking in his chambers. Stacy Amoroso settled in 2015 for $175,000, and James Frederick settled for $48,750.

Frederick's attorney and counsel for Bucks did not return a call seeking comment. The AOPC, which defended the court employees sued in the lawsuit, also declined to comment.

The Chester County Court also resolved two cases, with one settling for $23,000, and the other settling for $130,000.

The larger settlement stemmed from claims that plaintiff Carole Marlin, a clerk in the prothonotary's office, was fired for complaining about an allegedly sexually hostile work environment.

According to the complaint, which was filed in federal court in 2010, Marlin's male co-worker gave her suggestive song lyrics and hugged her for an extended period of time. He also showed her a photo of a naked man on his computer, according to the complaint. The co-worker, Arthur Corcoran, later became her supervisor and, at one point, showed her photos of nude women on his computer. Marlin reported the behavior, according to the complaint, and Corcoran allegedly began retaliating against her. Eventually she was fired.

Along with Corcoran and the county as defendants, court prothonotary Bryan Walters was also sued, both in his official and personal capacities for allegedly allowing the conduct and engaging in some of the alleged retaliation.

The case was resolved for $130,000 in 2011.

Counsel for the plaintiff did not return a call for comment. Counsel for the defendants in the case referred comment to Chester County, which declined to comment for the story.

The Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts said it settled one claim over the past 10 years. That claim stemmed from allegations that the plaintiff, Laurie Snyder, who was a single mother and an accountant at the AOPC, was subject to a hostile work environment.

The AOPC settled in 2011 for $71,000, which included $17,500 in attorney fees.

Snyder's attorney did not return a call for comment.

Court employees in Delaware County also resolved two complaints over the past 10 years, according to documents, for a total of $54,411.

The case Porter v. County of Delaware involved an adult probation department worker, Alana Porter, who claimed she was discriminated against and subjected to unreasonable and unwarranted scrutiny after she became pregnant. The case settled for $25,537 in 2015.

The other case involved a claim by Harlan Johnson, an employee at the Delaware County Juvenile Detention Center, who alleged that the director at the center disproportionately scrutinized and terminated African-American employees. He contended he was improperly fired for allegedly abandoning his post. The suit settled for $28,874 in 2014.

Defense counsel in both cases out of Delaware County did not return a message seeking comment. Counsel for Porter did not return a call for comment.

Bailey & Ehrenberg attorney William Wilson, who was appointed by the court to represent Johnson, said that he's consulted on several employment cases aimed at courts in Pennsylvania. He noted that there are various difficulties in bringing these cases, such as governmental immunity, and the common belief by jurors that court employees are familiar with and follow the law. For those reasons, he said it is difficult to glean overarching trends regarding the conduct of court employees, or determine the success of a lawsuit based on the award alone.

“The cases are, every one of them, very individual,” he said.