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Payton v. New Jersey Turnpike Authority3/26/1997
(This syllabus is not part of the opinion of the Court. It has been prepared by the Office of the Clerk for the convenience of the reader. It has been neither reviewed nor approved by the Supreme Court. Please note that, in the interests of brevity, portions of any opinion may not have been summarized).
Joanne Payton v. New Jersey Turnpike Authority (A-91-96)
Argued January 7, 1997 -- Decided March 26, 1997
HANDLER, J., writing for a unanimous Court.
In this case, an employee is suing her employer and two of her supervisors for sexual harassment under the Law Against Discrimination (LAD). The general question addressed by the Court is the nature and extent of the pretrial discovery that an employee claiming to have been sexually harassed is entitled to obtain for the purpose of establishing the employer's liability based on its alleged failure to respond to her complaints of sexual harassment.
Joanne Payton began working as a maintenance records clerk for the New Jersey Turnpike Authority (the Authority) in 1990. She alleged that, shortly after she started, two of her supervisors began to sexually harass her in various ways. Although Payton tolerated the harassment for several years, she finally filed an internal complaint with the Authority in September 1994. During the following seven months, the alleged harassment continued, with the Authority taking no remedial action against the supervisors. Finally, on March 10, 1995, Payton filed suit in the Superior Court, Law Division against the supervisors and the Authority, alleging that the Authority was vicariously liable for the acts of the supervisors under the LAD.
On April 26, 1995, the Authority announced that it had disciplined the two supervisors by suspending them without pay, by demoting them, and by reducing their salaries. The Authority raised these actions as an affirmative defense to Payton's complaint, claiming that, by its response to her complaint of sexual harassment, it had neither participated in nor acquiesced in the harassment. The Authority later represented that its Equal Employment Opportunity Officer (EEO Officer) had made initial findings about the complaint several months before Payton filed her internal complaint and, further, that it had issued a final investigative report only four days after she filed suit. Finally, the Authority asserted that, approximately one month after Payton filed suit, its Sexual Harassment Advisory Committee had completed a confidential review of the EEO Officer's report and that, on April 25, 1995, its commissioners had convened an executive session regarding the matter, during which they presumably discussed the report and determined the appropriate sanctions.
In order to gauge the validity of the Authority's affirmative defense that it had effectively remedied the harassment, Payton sought discovery of materials relating to the investigation and executive session, including transcripts, minutes, agendas, and other supporting documents. The Authority moved for a protective order exempting all of the requested documents from discovery and asking the court to seal the record. The Law Division granted the protective order in its entirety, without examining any of the documents in camera. In support of its broad order, the court cited the public policy of confidentiality embodied in the LAD and relied, to a lesser degree, on the attorney-client privilege and the privilege of self-critical analysis.
The Appellate Division granted Payton's motion for leave to appeal and vacated the protective order. The Appellate Division concluded that Payton was at least entitled to discover information relating to the extent
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