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Thursday, June 06, 2002

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

U.S. District Judge William Standish yesterday ordered unsealed the court records of a civil trial in which a former UPMC Health System employee won more than $250,000 in a race discrimination suit.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette had requested that the court papers be unsealed.

The papers had been sealed at the request of lawyers for UPMC after they lost the case May 10.

Catherine M. Loughner, former coordinator for temporary services at UPMC, won $275,000 for emotional distress, plus another $6,000 in lost wages.

In her lawsuit, Loughner, who is white, said she felt her supervisors harassed her into leaving in 1996 because she refused to stop recruiting minorities for temporary jobs at UPMC hospitals.

UPMC lawyers had asked that various parts of the case file -- including the verdict, trial transcript and several motions -- be sealed.

Loughner's attorney did not oppose the motion.

The Post-Gazette asserted that the public was not given prior notice of the motion to seal and was not given an opportunity to be heard on the motion, and that the reasons for the closure weren't made clear.