Don't Forget the Meta Data

Our client, a paralegal for a very well known large law firm (names withheld for privacy reasons) was subjected to harassment by her supervisor at work in the form of yelling and belittling our client in front of co-workers and claiming that our client had made several mistakes when entering client information into the computer data base. Our client claimed that she always checks her work and that she could not have made the mistakes they claimed. The employer had proof that the data was in fact entered incorrectly and on that basis denied the entire claim or that they acted inappropriately in any way toward our client. However, as litigation progressed Gary Jackson made a request that the company turn over the meta data, that is the data behind the data. The information you can't see on the computer screen but is nevertheless stored in the computer. This information would have shown who logged into our client's computer, if our client has initially entered the information correctly and if the information was later changed to reflect the wrong information. This information may have proven our client's claim that someone went into her computer and sabotaged her work. After many months of Gary pressing the defense for this information, we were able to settle the claim for very nearly the full value of work comp benefits in the amount of  $47,000.00