Location: Washington State
Last Friday, I received a very strange email. It claims to be from an attorney representing a certain company (that I worked for nearly 5 years ago) in a lawsuit in King County Superior Court, between a manager that was fired from a retail location I worked at and said company, relating to the circumstances surrounding said termination. I was entirely unaware that any litigation was in progress. The attorney went on to say that she wanted to make sure I was aware that the fired manager’s attorney had scheduled a deposition for me. In other words, this notice was coming from the defendant’s lawyer, NOT the plaintiff’s lawyer, but the deposition was scheduled by the plaintiff’s lawyer. The notice of deposition was attached to the email (I have not received a physical copy of any Notice of Deposition) and it says it’s from King County Superior Court and has the case number for the litigation that can be searched on the court’s portal. The attorney then finished the email by fishing for further details herself, asking if we could have our own conversation, separate from the deposition.
I have not responded to this email, as it confused and frightened me. As I mentioned, I was completely blindsided by the existence of the litigation. While I was involved in the manager’s termination, it was only through submitting a complaint about her to HR. I did not request for her to be terminated in that complaint. I was also not the only employee that submitted a complaint about her. I have nothing more to say about the situation to the company or the manager’s lawyer. I haven’t worked for them in nearly 5 years. It’s all behind me now and any information I have about that time would be fuzzy at best.
I searched the case in the King County portal and was alarmed to find that the case is The Manager vs. The Company + a named employee that worked at that retail location + “3 Jane/John Doe Defendants whose identity is not yet known.” I took as close of a look at the case that I could without paying to get documents, and I noted that there isn’t an official Notice of Deposition attached to the case that has my name on it, though there are other Notice of Depositions attached to it for the other named parties.
I feel like I’m losing my mind. The entire situation feels very weird and I want nothing to do with it. I guess my questions are:
- If I never receive a physical copy of the Notice of Deposition, do I have to attend? Or do I have to attend at all, even if I do receive a physical copy?
-Do I have to talk to the attorney that emailed me? Should I respond to the email at all?
-Is this some sort of trap set up by the fired manager’s attorney that could be sprung in order to add my name to the case?
-Do I need to secure an attorney to protect myself?
And finally: Is this actually not a big deal at all, am I freaking out too much, can I just ignore this message?
Any advice appreciated. Thanks.