September 2022 - Parks & Recreation - 33

Soon after, Lynch's " open door " policy to speak with
him, which he granted to everyone in the Parks Department,
no longer applied to Plaintiff. Around the same time,
Lynch made sure someone else always sat in on his biweekly
meetings with Plaintiff. Lynch also spoke with Plaintiff's
peers about her complaint and questioned Plaintiff's " loyalty "
for accusing him of gender discrimination.
In July 2013, Lynch informed Plaintiff that her gender
discrimination complaint had been turned over to HR
to be investigated. A month later, Plaintiff met with two
HR employees to discuss how to stop the retaliation and
harassment Lynch was directing at her. At the meeting,
Plaintiff explained that she was working in a hostile environment;
in response, the HR employees said they would
stop the retaliation and harassment against Plaintiff.
In October 2013, Lynch evaluated Plaintiff's work
performance. The scores Plaintiff received were the
lowest scores Plaintiff had ever received in her career,
as well as the lowest possible on the evaluation form.
Plaintiff believed the evaluation was illegitimate and
returned it to Lynch. Lynch then amended the evaluation
to include higher scores, with the revised score
being a 3.31 out of 4. Lynch evaluated Plaintiff again
at the end of 2013. Plaintiff's average score in this evaluation
was 3.35 out of 4.
In June 2014, Lynch issued a written reprimand via email
to Plaintiff for missing a work meeting. Approximately six
months later, Lynch issued another written reprimand via
email to Plaintiff, this time for missing a work deadline. Following
this second reprimand, Plaintiff spoke with Lynch
about the email, and she claims that he spoke to her like a
child and dismissed her with a wave of his hand.
For his part, Lynch admitted to " being irate " and
raising his voice at Plaintiff and other employees at
times. Plaintiff further contends that Lynch did not
reprimand other assistant directors for similar conduct,
but Lynch claims that he verbally reprimanded other
employees for being unprepared at meetings. In addition,
Lynch testified that he had issued written reprimands
to other employees for unrelated issues.
In July 2015, Lynch completed another work evaluation
for Plaintiff. He gave Plaintiff's performance a
2.88 rating on a scale where two was considered acceptable
and three was considered commendable. In
his rationale for the score, Lynch wrote:
Sally has done a credible job in Recreation but her relationship
with peers in the department and her supervisor
continues to deteriorate. She has been reprimanded within
the past year; and yet seems to think she is entitled to
not respond to her supervisor in certain situations.
Plaintiff, however, disputes that her relationships
with peers had deteriorated. A few days after Lynch's
evaluation, Plaintiff requested another meeting with
HR to discuss her complaints regarding Lynch.
New Supervisor
In February 2016, Lynch appointed Monique Odom
as deputy director of the Parks Department. As the
deputy director, Odom held an equivalent rank and a
functionally similar position in the department as the
assistant directors, including Plaintiff.
In April 2016, Lynch informed Plaintiff that she
would now be reporting to Odom, who would then
report to Lynch. Around the same time, Lynch
stopped speaking to Plaintiff except at group meetings,
and Plaintiff began having biweekly meetings
with Odom instead of Lynch. Plaintiff was the first
assistant director supervised by Odom, but Odom
eventually supervised all the assistant directors with22_001919_Parks_n_Rec_SEP
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