When a prestigious Maryland private school terminated its Chief Financial Officer, what began as an internal personnel decision quickly escalated into a high-profile lawsuit and a public relations crisis that threatened the institution.
The former executive filed suit alleging whistleblower retaliation, claiming he had been fired after reporting discrimination concerns raised by members of the school’s groundskeeping staff. The allegations gained immediate attention when the Washington Post published a front-page story detailing the claims. For a school whose reputation had been built on trust, community, and integrity, the coverage struck at the heart of everything it stood for.
Carr Maloney’s litigation team, Thomas McCally and Nat Calamis, defended the case and helped restore confidence in an institution that had served its community with distinction for generations.
Two Cases Within One: Lawfully Terminated or Retaliation?
The lawsuit, filed in Montgomery Circuit Court, centered on a whistleblower retaliation claim seeking a tremendous amount of money in damages. The plaintiff alleged that he had been terminated after raising concerns that groundskeeping employees were being treated unfairly and discriminated against by their supervisor.
The school maintained that the termination had nothing to do with whistleblowing. Instead, leadership had documented serious performance concerns regarding the CFO’s management and financial oversight responsibilities.
But in the court of public opinion, that nuance risked getting lost. Several complications made the case harder:
- A front-page news story had already shaped public perception before a single witness was sworn in
- The plaintiff was a senior executive; a figure juries often find sympathetic
- The discrimination allegations involved the leadership of the institution, adding layers of complexity
- Some groundskeeping employees had signed affidavits they later said they had never read, leaving open the question of whether they had been misled
The legal team needed to address not just the lawsuit, but the human story behind it. One that involved a real institution with people.
The Defense Strategy: Uncovering the Truth:
McCally and Calamis focused on building a clear and credible narrative: the CFO had been terminated for legitimate performance reasons, not in retaliation for whistleblowing. It would require uncovering the truth and presenting it in a way that jury could believe.
To support this defense, the legal team conducted a thorough internal investigation. They interviewed all ground keepers, reviewed their affidavits, and collected new statements that accurately reflected employees’ understanding of the situation.
During this process, several employees clarified that the working conditions they had originally described did not, in their view, amount to unlawful discrimination.
The defense team also took the strategic step of conducting a video-recorded deposition of the plaintiff. What emerged was revealing: his account of events was inconsistent, and portions appeared to be less than credible. Those recordings would later prove critical at trial, allowing the jury to evaluate the plaintiff’s credibility in his own words.
Shortly before trial, the supervisor overseeing the groundskeeping staff was terminated due to unrelated management issues. While the decision reflected the school’s effort to address internal leadership concerns, it added another layer of complexity that the defense team had to address in court. Indeed, the jury could have interpreted the supervisor’s termination as an action taken only to protect the school’s reputation.
McCally and Calamis moved quickly to defuse it. They gathered documentation showing that the decision to terminate the supervisor had been driven entirely by legitimate, independent performance concerns unrelated to the litigation.