The legal war between the Town of Summerfield and two of its former top employees shows no signs of cooling off – and former Summerfield Finance Officer Dee Hall says the fight has now required her and former Town Manager Scott Whitaker to turn over more than 22,000 pages of emails, text messages, photos and other personal material.
Hall, who has repeatedly accused members of the Summerfield Town Council of pursuing a political vendetta against her and Whitaker, issued a new statement this week describing the latest round of discovery in the ongoing litigation.
“At the town’s demand, Scott and I were forced to turn over 22,000+ pages of personal emails, private text messages, and photos – with our children, family, friends, and supporters,” Hall stated in an email to the Rhino Times.
“To meet the town council’s insatiable demands, we gave our attorneys total access to our cellphones and personal email accounts so that hi-tech, sophisticated electronic discovery software could cull every piece of our personal and family lives and data within a five-day period.”
The production is the latest development in a bitter dispute that’s been going on for more than two years and has since spawned lawsuits going in both directions.
Whitaker served as Summerfield town manager for roughly 12 years before a divided Town Council decided in early 2024 not to renew his contract. The decision helped set off a period of turmoil at Town Hall, and the town’s remaining staff members, including Hall, subsequently resigned.
The dispute intensified in January of 2025 when former North Carolina State Auditor Beth Wood appeared out of nowhere before the Summerfield Town Council and presented a report containing allegations concerning financial practices, employee leave payments, town records and other actions involving the former administration.
Whitaker and Hall strongly denied wrongdoing and complained that they hadn’t been given a chance to answer the allegations before they were presented publicly.
The Town Council ultimately pursued civil litigation against the two former employees.
The Guilford County Sheriff’s Office investigated the allegations but, after consulting with the Guilford County District Attorney’s Office, announced that it wouldn’t pursue criminal charges.
Whitaker and Hall later went on the offensive themselves, filing a lawsuit alleging defamation and civil conspiracy against Wood, current Summerfield Town Manager Twig Rollins, former Interim Town Manager Dana Luther and Town Councilmember Heath Clay.
That leaves the two sides locked in continuing civil litigation – and Hall said this week that the breadth of the town’s discovery demands demonstrates jusst how far the dispute has gone.
“In addition to the vengeful invasion of our privacy, the town council’s lust for our personal and private data were extremely broad,” Hall stated.
“The town council demanded every communication (including advertisements and junk mail) that contained words such as ‘town’ or ‘summer’ or ‘Summerfield’ in which to conduct its ‘fishing expedition’ into our personal lives.”
Hall said much of the material had nothing to do with the period when she and Whitaker were employed by the town.
“The vast majority of the electronic data were private and personal exchanges that took place long after we left our employment with the Town of Summerfield – some 804 days ago – to the current date,” she wrote.
One of the central issues in the town’s case has been the handling and possession of town records. In August 2025, a Guilford County Superior Court judge issued an order concerning public records in the possession of Whitaker and Hall as the litigation moved forward.
Hall continues to maintain that neither she nor Whitaker improperly took town records.
“In the aftermath of the town council’s draconian actions, it will be forced to see that at no time did we ever improperly take town records,” she stated.
Hall also said the litigation is taking a major financial toll.
“However, we also realize that the town council’s primary objective is to decimate our finances, ruin our reputations, and devastate our careers – all at taxpayer’s expense,” she wrote. “To date, we have incurred over $400 thousand in legal fees with no end in sight.”
Hall said that both she and Whitaker understand the town’s legal expenses related to the dispute to have exceeded $1 million. (That figure hasn’t been independently verified by the Rhino Times.)
“On the other hand, the town council, with its unlimited finances, has incurred what we understand exceeds one million dollars for its personal vendetta,” Hall stated.
The Town of Summerfield has taken a very different view of the litigation.
In a statement posted on the town’s website regarding the Whitaker-Hall legal proceedings, town officials said state personnel laws restrict what the town can say publicly about current or former employees and cautioned that the town’s silence shouldn’t be interpreted as agreement with statements made by others.
The town also stated that it continues to pursue its civil claims and defend itself against claims after careful consideration.
Hall, however, said that she and Whitaker have no intention of backing down.
“We are innocent and we will fight the town council’s ‘bullying’ lawsuit against us with all our heart and resources with full hope that the truth will prevail.”
