PAXTON — Attorneys for the five plaintiffs and five defendants named in lawsuits filed last summer alleging the inappropriate touching of female students at Paxton-Buckley-Loda schools by former coach and suspended teacher Robert Pacey will be allowed to designate certain records shared in the discovery process as “confidential,” prohibiting their disclosure to the public.
Following a Nov. 18 status hearing, McLean County Judge Rebecca Foley entered a protective order pursuant to Illinois Supreme Court Rule 201(c) to prohibit the disclosure of “confidential information” contained in “all materials produced or adduced in the course of discovery,” including initial disclosures, responses to discovery requests and deposition testimony and exhibits.
Rob Pacey is seen at a Paxton City Council meeting.
The protective order was requested by attorney Bhavani Raveendran of Chicago-based Raveendran Law LLC, who filed a series of lawsuits on behalf of five current and former PBL students last summer, later consolidating the cases into one, alleging that Pacey inappropriately touched them and other female students over the course of his 17 years of employment at PBL and that administrators did not properly address students’ claims of misconduct, ignoring the district’s own policies by never notifying the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services as required. Pacey, who was suspended with pay last spring from his job as a STEM and technology teacher at Clara Peterson Elementary School, has not been criminally charged and has denied any wrongdoing.
According to the protective order, confidential information to be prohibited from public disclosure in the civil case — which names Pacey, the school district, PBL Junior High School Principal Josh Didier and former Superintendents Travis Duley and Cliff McClure as defendants — should be designated as such by the producing party. It includes any information already prohibited from disclosure by law; student records, including disciplinary records; medical or mental health information; the names of the plaintiffs; employment or school records of any party or witness to the case; employment, disciplinary or other information of a “sensitive nature” regarding the plaintiffs, defendants or witnesses; income tax returns; and documents designated as confidential by a third party obtained via subpoena.
“Such information includes … private information in personnel files, such as employment applications, performance evaluations, tax forms, requests for medical leave and the like, as well as personal and family information of employees and agents of PBL, including residential information of any party,” the order said.
Also prohibited from disclosure are any “sensitive personal data of minor students,” including investigative materials and interviews related to the district’s completed Title IX investigation or separate investigations by the Illinois State Police, Illinois State Board of Education, Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, Champaign County Children’s Advocacy Center or the school district, the order said.
With limited exceptions, the confidential information may be reviewed only by the parties and their attorneys, court personnel, contractors hired to make copies of documents, consultants, investigators or experts hired by the parties or legal counsel, witnesses “to whom disclosure is reasonably necessary” during their depositions, and the author or recipient of the document, the order said. Others may see the documents only with written consent of the producing party or upon a court order.
Those who would see the documents would first be required to sign a certification acknowledging their obligations under the protective order and the potential penalties for violating it, including a charge of contempt of court.
The order does not affect the use of any document or information at any hearing or trial, Foley noted.
“A party that intends to present or that anticipates that another party may present confidential information at a hearing or trial shall bring that issue to the court’s and parties’ attention by motion or in a pretrial memorandum without disclosing the confidential information,” the order said. “The court may thereafter make such orders as are necessary to govern the use of such documents or information at hearing.”
The protective order also applies only to documents filed in court — not the school district’s responses to Illinois Freedom of Information Act requests. In granting the protective order, Foley denied an additional measure requested by Raveendran that would have required PBL to give the plaintiffs three days’ notice whenever information related to their civil cases is released in response to FOIA requests. The school district’s attorney, Michael Bersani of Itasca-based Hervas, Condon & Bersani PC, argued the requirement would go “beyond the court’s discretionary authority.”
“Nothing in this order shall apply to, limit or prohibit the school district’s response to public requests under IFOIA,” the protective order said.
The protective order remains in force through the resolution of the case.
Meanwhile, attorneys for the defendants told Foley during the Nov. 18 status hearing — held remotely via Zoom — that they were on track to meet their deadline of Friday, Dec. 12, to file responsive pleadings in the case. Foley set a status hearing regarding the responsive pleadings for 10 a.m. Monday, Dec. 29, via Zoom.
Foley was reassigned to hear the lawsuits after their filing in Ford County Circuit Court.