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The County of Humboldt filed suit against former Deputy County Counsel Cathie Childs and her attorney Cyndy Day-Wilson in Humboldt County Superior Court this week for allegedly disclosing confidential and attorney-client privileged information to the public in a recent legal action against the county.
Specifically, the complaint, filed on behalf of the county by Sacramento-based law firm Libert Cassidy Whitmore, calls out a recent Lost Coast Outpost article written by this reporter which outlined the details of Childs’ claim for damages against the county.
“The Outpost article includes a link to a complete, unredacted, and downloadable copy of Childs’s Claim for Damages, including the details of legal advice that Childs provided at Humboldt County in the course of her employment as a Deputy County Counsel,” the complaint states. “Humboldt County did not provide an unredacted copy of Childs’s Claim for Damages to the Outpost, and it did not authorize Childs’s disclosures of privileged or confidential information.”
Childs’ unredacted Claim for Damages details eleven tumultuous months in which she was allegedly “hazed” and discriminated against by specific members of the Public Works Department who consistently undermined her legal authority.
Childs complained to her immediate supervisor, County Counsel Scott Miles, on numerous occasions during her employment at the county, the claim states, but their relationship eventually became strained. She was told to file a formal complaint through the county’s Human Resources Department, which led Childs to seek her own legal counsel to advise her on whether that was an appropriate next step. She also contacted the California Bar to file an ethics complaint against her supervisors for allowing non-lawyers to practice law. She was fired the next day.
Shortly after she was fired, the county sent Childs a “Notice to Cease and Desist,” which ordered her to stop “disclosing confidential and/or attorney-client privileged information” as well as complaints, “whether they be criminal, administrative or disciplinary.”
Day-Wilson maintained that the county had misapplied the definition of attorney-client privilege, noting in the claim that it “protects only confidential communications made by a client seeking legal advice from their legal adviser. County staff are NOT [Childs’] clients. The Board of Supervisors is the client.”
The county, on the other hand, believes Childs and Day-Wilson “have, and are continuing to, act on a knowingly erroneous interpretation of the scope of the attorney-client privilege and duty of confidentiality … which presents an imminent threat in the form of further unauthorized disclosures of privileged or confidential information,” according to the complaint.
The county also asserts that Childs violated attorney-client privilege by forwarding internal county emails to her personal email address, “or had included her personal email address as a blind copy ‘BCC’ recipient on internal emails between herself and Humboldt County staff.”
Childs intends to sue the county for wrongful termination and violation of her federal civil rights and freedom of speech. However, if it is proven that Childs violated attorney-client privilege, the county argues that a wrongful termination charge cannot move forward.
“The California Supreme Court in General Dynamics Corp. v. Superior Court (1994) … held that a former in-house counsel can maintain a wrongful termination charge only to the extent they can establish the claim without breaching the attorney-client privilege or unduly endangering the values lying at the heart of the professional relationship,” the complaint states. “[The] County … believes that Childs and Day-Wilson intentionally disclosed confidential and privileged information obtained during the course of Childs’s employment at [the] County to the Outpost, and perhaps others, notwithstanding Humboldt County’s repeated insistence that she refrain from disclosing privileged information.”
The county fears the continued release of attorney-client privileged information could cause “great irreparable injury” to Humboldt County. As such, the county is asking the court to prohibit further “unauthorized disclosures of attorney-client privileged information or information covered by Childs’s duty of confidentiality.”
It is not totally clear what happens next or when this matter will be discussed in court. Reached for additional comment on the matter, county spokesperson Catarina Gallardo provided the following emailed statement: “This is an important matter to us; however, this is a legal matter, and the county must preserve the integrity of that process. As such, we will not be able to discuss this subject with the press further at this time.”
Childs maintains that the county discriminated against her because of her gender which, she says, resulted in her wrongful termination. She intends to move ahead with her lawsuit against the county.
“Because I am now taking legal action, the County is now attempting to create a distraction from their own wrongdoing with unfounded and untrue allegations,” she wrote in a text message to the Outpost on Friday afternoon.
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DOCUMENT: Complaint for Permanent and Preliminary Injunction
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