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Former Wood County court officer’s lawsuit against Stephens remains active

PARKERSBURG — The case of a court officer who has sued a former sheriff for emotional distress for taking time off to care for his sick wife while the sheriff allegedly was pressuring him to return to work is continuing.

Mark Harris filed suit in late 2021 against the Wood County Commission and former Sheriff Steve Stephens.

The case was assigned to Pleasants County Circuit Judge Timothy L. Sweeney after judges in Wood County had to recuse themselves. Sweeney is also handling the case between the commission, the Wood County Sheriff’s Department and Stephens brought by former Deputy Sgt. Della Matheny who alleges inappropriate behavior from Stephens.

Harris claimed Stephens caused him emotional distress over time taken off to care for his sick wife.

Harris, who has been employed by the county since 1984, claims in his lawsuit that Stephens’ conduct in reference to his time off was “atrocious, intolerable, and so extreme and outrageous as to exceed the bounds of decency.”

His wife was diagnosed with cancer in June 2016 and at that time, Harris used accrued sick leave to take care of her.

In late 2017, other employees began donating their sick and vacation time to Harris so he could take care of his wife and at the time, Stephens allowed it, according to the suit.

Once the sick days ran out, Harris started using vacation days and the suit said Stephens “exerted undue pressure on (Harris) to stop using his leave time and to be at work.”

Stephens held meetings with Harris about the matter, during which the suit said Stephens swore at Harris and threatened his job if he continued to miss work.

Harris’ wife passed away Sept. 21, 2020. The suit alleges employees wanted to take up a donation for Harris, but Stephens didn’t allow it.

Both sides have been engaged in the exchange of written discovery and taking depositions.

On June 9, Harris served requests on the commission and the sheriff’s department to utilize various terms to search the email inboxes of specific custodians.

During deposition of county IT professionals in September and October, the parties learned the requested email searches were not conducted and the plaintiffs made a motion to have those searches done in this case as well as the Matheny case by a third-party expert.

The commission and sheriff’s department have represented there is approximately 50 GB of email data being reviewed, court records say.

The court found good cause to allow additional time for the completion of discovery and pretrial filings, records said.

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