SAN DIEGO (CN) - Attorneys for San Diego County have asked a superior court judge to prevent the disclosure of an email detailing claims of a quid pro quo between the county's former chief administrative officer and its top lawyer. 

The email stems from a lawsuit filed last year by Michael Vu, who served as San Diego County's assistant chief administrative officer until October 2024. Vu, a nearly 18-year county employee, claims the county unlawfully passed him over for the top job because he refused to hire a preferred candidate as his assistant and because he is Asian. He sued the county for discrimination, California labor law violations and defamation.

The email in question was written by Vu's supervisor, former CAO Helen Robbins-Meyer, who supported Vu and recommended him as her successor. Sent to former County Counsel Claudia Silva, it described what Robbins-Meyer characterized as inappropriate interference by County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer, now chair of the board of supervisors.

County attorneys argued before Superior Court Judge Evan Kirvin that the email should be protected from disclosure because it is confidential under attorney-client privilege.

Vu's attorneys argued otherwise, pointing to Robbins-Meyer's deposition testimony that she did not view the email as privileged because she was not seeking legal advice or conveying confidential information.

The county argued that attorney-client privilege can be waived, but only through a board vote.

"Regardless of her title, Mrs. Robbins-Meyer did not have unilateral authority to waive attorney-client privilege," said county attorney Guillermo Escobedo, of Constangy & Brooks. "The county practice has always been through a board vote. I don't know how someone can act unilaterally and say this counts as a waiver."

Vu's attorneys also noted that the email has been referenced repeatedly during public comment at San Diego County Board of Supervisors meetings since August without county intervention, said Chip Edleson of Edleson & Hindman, who represents Vu. Recordings of those comments remain publicly available on the county's website.

Escobedo responded that attempting to police public comment during those meetings would risk violating the First Amendment. He also said only a brief excerpt - about 50 words - was referenced and not quoted verbatim.

"It was never a full disclosure," Escobedo said. 

But Edleson said that the email has already become a matter of public knowledge.

"There's no excuse for the county to have these [videos] published on their website for months," Edleson said. "Counsel is asking something that it is unwilling to do itself. There's been no legal action to stop dissemination of this email."

The motion for a protective order was only filed in October, despite the email's presentation to the court in July. 

In a tentative ruling, Kirvin sided with Vu against the motion for a protective order. 

"While it may be argued that the county did not have a meaningful opportunity to stop a public speaker from reading out the email in the moment as board members may not be able to react quickly enough, plaintiff notes that audio and video records of the meetings, including the reading of the email, are hosted on the county's own website," the judge wrote. "The county certainly had a meaningful opportunity to redact the recordings to remove any privileged materials yet elected to maintain unredacted publicly available recordings of the meetings."

The email's contents have also been reported by San Diego news outlets covering Vu's firing and lawsuit. In July last year, San Diego's bilingual newspaper La Prensa published Robbins-Meyer's email in full.

In it, Robbins-Meyer describes what she called an "egregious quid pro quo" and an "unethical scheme," presenting that Lawson-Remer proposed backing Vu as CAO only if he agreed to appoint another employee, Paul Worlie, as his assistant. Robbins-Meyer said the exchange raised concerns about violating the state's open meetings law.

Vu, who is Asian, also names former Supervisor Nora Vargas as a defendant, claiming she refused to support his appointment because she wanted a Hispanic or Black candidate to fill the role.

Vargas, who was reelected in 2024, resigned unexpectedly before her second term began in January of 2025, citing safety concerns. 

Vu also claims that Vargas and Lawson-Remer defamed him in public statements by inferring that he was dishonest.

Source: Courthouse News Service