Firm that investigated sexual abuse claims at Ohio State must hand over interview notes, witness names

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – The firm that handled an investigation into allegations of sexual abuse by an Ohio State University doctor must hand its interview notes and other investigatory materials to survivors’ attorneys, a court has ruled.

The order, handed down by a federal magistrate on Wednesday, is a win for survivors of former Ohio State physician Richard Strauss. During his two-decade tenure as student health center physician and varsity sports team doctor, an independent investigation released in 2019 found that Strauss sexually abused at least 177 former students, mostly men – and that university officials were aware of it since his second year on the job.

“Despite the fact that OSU has publicly touted their dedication to transparency as this case moves through the courts, both OSU and Perkins Coie vigorously fought to suppress this information. Today, we are grateful to the court for holding them to account and ordering that Perkins Coie release these documents,” attorneys representing the survivors said in a statement. “We look forward to a greater understanding of the Perkins Coie investigation and the additional context these documents will provide in describing the breadth and depth of OSU’s knowledge of Strauss’s abuse and its failure to take action to stop it.”

Strauss, who worked at Ohio State from 1978 to 1998, died by suicide in 2005. Since 2018, more than 400 victims and their families have filed lawsuits against Ohio State for its failure to prevent and address the abuse. 

Ohio State fought survivors’ lawsuits for years, culminating in a failed appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2023. The university has settled with nearly 300 survivors for $60 million since 2020, including through a settlement program that individual survivors in the open cases may have elected to join. 

What has delayed trial proceedings for more than 230 survivors in active lawsuits is a years-old dispute as to whether the materials produced during the independent investigation should be turned over to survivors’ attorneys. The firm Perkins Coie interviewed more than 500 people, including former students, administrators, coaches, doctors and university staff, and survivors’ attorneys want documents related to many of those interviews –  including interview notes, witness lists and contact information.

Perkins Coie had argued its investigation materials were protected under both work-product and attorney-client privilege, and claimed the volume of records presented an undue burden on the firm to sort through and turn over. Ohio State, meanwhile, argued the materials were doubly protected under its own assertion of attorney-client privilege.

Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Deavers strongly disagreed with Perkins Coie and Ohio State on the vast majority of their claims.

For one, Deavers wrote, Perkins Coie never legally represented Ohio State. In fact, Ohio State was never a client of Perkins Coie; the independent investigation was commissioned by Ohio State’s special counsel in the case, Porter Wright Morris & Arthur.

Deavers acknowledged that communications between Perkins Coie and Porter Wright, to the extent that they concerned legal advice, are protected by attorney-client privilege. But survivors’ attorneys never asked for such communications between the firms.

For work-product privilege to apply to the investigation materials, Perkins Coie had to demonstrate that the investigation materials were created because of reasonably anticipated legal action against Ohio State. But Ohio State’s descriptions of the investigation’s purpose suggest otherwise, Deavers determined, noting the university’s webpage dedicated to the Strauss investigation, fitted with news releases, university-wide emails and statements suggesting the university’s commitment to transparency in the investigation.

“Without belaboring it, OSU’s establishment and maintenance of the dedicated webpage is evidence of a business-related, public relations element to the Investigation,” Deavers wrote. “Both Perkins Coie and OSU fail to address this issue.”

Ultimately, Deavers ordered the following:

• Perkins Coie must turn over spreadsheets and interview memoranda created for each non-survivor witness they interviewed. Non-survivor witnesses include former and current university staff, non-survivor students, and other third parties.
• Perkins Coie is not required to produce any confidential communications involving legal advice between Perkins Coie and its client, Porter Wright
• Perkins Coie must determine, within 30 days, whether the remaining documents that survivors’ attorneys seek are publicly available from Ohio State’s original release of source materials related to the investigation. If documents differ, Perkins Coie must identify categories of those documents and confer with survivors’ attorneys about the production of such materials.
• To prevent an undue burden on Perkins Coie, the court will decide whether the firm will be required to hand over written communications or notes of written communications between Perkins Coie and non-survivor witnesses. The court will confidentially review a selection of such documents.

A spokesperson for Ohio State declined to comment other than to say the university was reviewing the ruling.