An attorney defending Leelanau County in a Whistleblower Protection Act lawsuit filed against the county by fired Construction Code Authority head Robert VanDyke will need to be a little more forthcoming in answering questions from VanDyke's attorney, a judge ordered this week.

On Monday, 13th Circuit Court Judge Thomas G. Power signed an order denying the county’s motion for a protective order that would have quashed a deposition of the county’s attorney John McGlinchey. In a hearing Monday, McGlinchey asserted – as he did during a related hearing in March – that any advice he had provided to VanDyke regarding county matters was subject to “attorney-client privilege.”

However, the county’s attorneys had earlier waived the privilege in the case of a letter McGlinchy had written to VanDyke that explained how VanDyke should proceed in disciplining one of the Construction Code Authority’s mechanical inspectors, a union member. Part of the county’s defense in the Whistleblower Protection Act case rests on an assertion that VanDyke was fired primarily because he had failed to properly discipline the employee. The employee resigned voluntarily earlier this year – about nine months after VanDyke was fired.

VanDyke’s attorney, Mark Hullman, has asserted that VanDyke was fired primarily because he “blew the whistle” on apparent construction code violations at the new Leelanau County Government Center while under construction, and at the troubled BayView condominium complex in the Village of Suttons Bay.

VanDyke was fired last spring just days after he rescinded occupancy permits at BayView because of construction code violations there. The day after VanDyke was fired, county administrator David W. Gill, acting as “interim” head of VanDyke’s old department, reinstated the occupancy permits. Gill, who has been named individually as a defendant in VanDyke’s lawsuit, has consistently denied that concerns about the BayView condos were the primary reason he fired VanDyke.

In March, Rodgers issued an order quashing Hullman’s demand to take sworn testimony from McGlinchy and another county attorney about the legal advice they provided VanDyke and other county officials regarding Construction Code Authority matters. The judge, however, allowed Hullman to depose McGlinchy about the one letter he wrote to VanDyke regarding the disciplining of the union employee who had been involved in inspecting BayView and another project in which code violations had been discovered.

Hullman told Rodgers this week that McGlinchy had declined to answer some of his questions during a recent deposition. Citing case law, Hullman convinced the judge that McGlinchy should be required to answer questions not just about the letter he sent to VanDyke, but about “all communications” regarding the disciplining of the union employee.

“This is especially relevant because Mr. Gill has claimed that my client’s failure to fire the employee was the primary reason he fired Mr. VanDyke,” Hullman said. “We intend to prove that this was just a pretext.”

A settlement conference in the case has been slated for June 6, with a jury trial scheduled for July 15.