Los Angeles, CA – August 28, 2020. In a case alleging novel theories of liability under the First Amendment, Daniel Modafferi and Golnar Fozi secured summary judgment in favor of their clients, who are current and former administrators of the Claremont Unified School District. The lawsuit arose after the owner of a popular field trip venue in San Bernardino County posted caustic messages on his social media accounts. Evidence produced in the case revealed the social media posts led parents to complain to the school district which, in response to the parent complaints, canceled upcoming field trips to that venue and chose alternative venues instead. Both the owner of the venue and the venue itself sued the school district, its Superintendent, all five members of its Board of Education, and two elementary school Principals. The complaint sought millions of dollars in damages for the alleged loss of business revenue, as well as reputational harm.
Under Supreme Court case law, it is a violation of the First Amendment for a governmental agency to retaliate against any person for the person’s exercise of his or her freedom of speech. The plaintiffs alleged that the venue owner’s social media posts constituted protected speech, and that the school district could not cancel its field trips because of the venue owner’s speech.
On March 8, 2019, the United States District Court for the Central District of California dismissed all claims against the school district because, under California law, public school districts are state agencies, and therefore, they cannot be held liable under 42 United States Code section 1983 (part of the Civil Rights Act of 1871).
On July 17, 2020, the Court granted summary judgment in favor of all eight remaining defendants, based on qualified immunity. Qualified immunity is the doctrine that government employees should not be held personally liable for monetary damages unless the right the plaintiffs allege the government employees violated was clearly established in law at the time of the alleged constitutional injury. In order for a right to be clearly established, the contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right. There must be some parallel or comparable fact pattern to alert an officer that a series of actions would violate an existing constitutional right. If public employees of reasonable competence could disagree on the issue, qualified immunity should be recognized, and the public employee defendants must not be required to stand trial.
In this case, the Court observed that no court has ever held public school administrators personally liable for making a decision about field trip venues in response to parents’ complaints about the speech of the venue owner. Because there was no clearly established right at the time the field trips were canceled, there was no need for the Court to analyze whether or not the defendants violated such a right. Therefore, the Court granted summary judgment in favor of the eight school administrators and dismissed the case, in its entirety.
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