The legal team for a Butler County probation officer who filed a lawsuit against the president judge of the county and others, alleging sexual misconduct and workplace discrimination, responded to motions to dismiss the case, backing up their legal claims earlier this week.

Crystal Starnes' attorney, Edward Olds, filed responses to two motions previously filed by named defendants President Judge Thomas Doerr, Deputy Court Administrator Thomas Holman and the Butler County Court system, which attempted to have the case dismissed.

Those responses, backed by legal argument, stated that Starnes has made claims for constitutional rights violations and workplace discrimination, and that U.S. District Court Judge Cathy Bissoon should allow the case to continue.

In Doerr's motion to dismiss, his attorney Thomas McGinnis wrote that the lawsuit fails to demonstrate “any violation” of Starnes' First Amendment rights; fails to state a “legally sufficient claim” for violation of her 14th Amendment right to equal protection; fails to demonstrate how Starnes' procedural due process rights were violated; fails to state an “actionable claim” of retaliation against Starnes; and argues that Doerr is entitled to “qualified immunity with respect to the claims asserted in the (complaint).”

The motion also argues that Starnes' lawsuit should be dismissed because her claims are “largely based upon time-barred events dating back to 2004, and (she) seeks to relitigate matters that were resolved,” by a settlement in 2014.

Starnes' response states that “the validity of a purported release and the efficacy of his statute of limitations defense ... are matters better left to later stages of the case.”

The response states that Starnes' 14th Amendment equal protection claims against Doerr for creating a hostile work environment are valid, as “Obviously, Starnes' treatment is based on gender, as no sexual relations would have occurred if she was a male, and hence her rights fall squarely within the ambit of protection afforded by the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause.”

“While Doerr protests that the sexual relations ended in 2009 and that reference to them is time-barred, they are but the first incident in the long history of the hostile work environment/sexual harassment claim,” the document states. “Certainly, four years of unwelcome sexual relations is part of a hostile work environment ... The experience for Starnes was one continuing pattern of sexual harassment.“

The First Amendment claim is based upon choice of engaging intimately.

“The imposition or attempted imposition of the intimate relationship violates Starnes' freedom to make her own choices about with whom she enters intimate relationships,” the document states,

The county's motion to dismiss argues that Starnes “validly released all claims regarding her extramarital affair that occurred before May 12, 2014,” when she signed a legal document with the county to secure a probation officer position with the Domestic Relations Office following a pregnancy and reassignment.

That deal “unconditionally and forever release, remise and discharge the Butler County Court of Common Pleas ... from any and all claims, demands and causes of action that Starnes has, had or may have ever had, arising out of the events that have transpired from the beginning of Starnes' employment with the Court until the date of this Release,” a brief in support of the motion states.

Regarding the 2014 settlement, both responses address that settlement, saying that Starnes never signed the release, nor was she provided a copy when it was executed.

Starnes, in the lawsuit filed in October of last year, alleges that she and Doerr engaged in a years-long affair that Doerr initiated shortly before Starnes was hired as a probation officer by the county.

In her lawsuit, Starnes claims that Doerr would initiate sexual encounters with her in a “business” relationship she felt she had little say in, and that she was subsequently the target of workplace harassment and retaliation at the hands of other courthouse employees who developed “resentment, antipathy and anger” toward her because of her relationship with Doerr.