The legal term is de minimis. It is Latin for a trifling or inconsequential matter — something too small to be considered meaningful under the law.
The North East School District is turning to the legal term in U.S. District Court in Erie.
The district is citing the term as it seeks to dismiss a lawsuit that a parent filed over criticism that she claims she received in response to an incident in the drop-off line for district students on the first day of school in August.
The district is arguing that the parent’s claims about the criticism, even if accurate, fall well short of amounting to a violation of her First Amendment rights.
The criticism, according to the district, was nowhere near the type of response that could be considered a constitutional violation.
If anything, according to the district, the criticism amounted to the expression of opinion in response to the parent’s expression of her opinions.
Any criticism fails “to rise above the level of de minimis action,” the district said in a brief to dismiss to the lawsuit.
Mom vs. district, superintendent, School Board president
The parent, Sara Kim, is claiming that the North East School District unlawfully retaliated against after she went on Facebook and criticized how Superintendent Michele Hartzell handled herself during the automobile drop-off line on the morning of Aug. 29.
Kim is contending that Hartzell reported the incident to the president of the North East School Board, Nicholas Mobilia, who, according to Kim’s suit, denigrated Kim while showing surveillance video of the incident to “multiple patrons” at Arrowhead Wine Cellars, a business Mobilia runs in North East.
Kim is claiming that the actions of Hartzell, Mobilia and the school district — the three defendants in the lawsuit — show that Kim was targeted “in retaliation for expressing her opinions and refusing to give in to Hartzell’s demands.”
Kim sued in March. She is seeking compensatory and punitive damages.
The district filed its dismissal motion and brief on May 17.
U.S. District Judge Cathy Bissoon, of Pittsburgh, gave Kim until June 6 to respond. A ruling will come later.
A dustup in the school drop-off line
The incident that led to the lawsuit is not in dispute. Kim’s claims about the reaction to the incident are what prompted her to sue.
The incident unfolded as Kim was letting her two children out of her SUV outside the North East Intermediate Elementary School, also the drop-off point for the Earl C. Davis Primary School, where Kim’s children go.
After her children got out of the SUV, Kim stayed stopped momentarily, briefly backing up cars behind her, according to the video surveillance of the incident. The situation caught the attention of Hartzell. She is seen on the video hurrying out of the intermediate school building and waving her arms at Kim’s SUV to keep the line moving.
Kim drives her SUV forward without her and Hartzell confronting each other. The SUV leaves the parking lot as Hartzell stays on the sidewalk and ushers other vehicles forward.
On Facebook, Kim claimed Hartzell went too far.
“You are NEVER in the drop off line,” reads the post, which Kim included in her suit. “It is our teachers who brave the elements EVERYDAY to get the kids into school safely — don’t make today a show and leave your office.”
In her email to Kim — also included in the suit — Hartzell asked that she remove the “negative post from today.”
Kim refused.
Unconstitutional retaliation or regular criticism?
Kim claims Hartzell retaliated against her by complaining about her to School Board President Mobilia other School Board members and the public.
She claims Mobilia retaliated against her by displaying the video to others “and soliciting and encouraging criticism of Kim in an attempt to humiliate her.”
In denying the claims, the district made the de minimis argument over any criticism of Kim. It is contending that Kim never alleges that the district’s response to her was a threat, coercion or intimidation, “only that the speech was critical.”
The district also referred to the public nature of the video. Its lawyers — Michael Brungo and Krisha DiMascio, both of Pittsburgh — questioned how Kim and her lawyer, Arthur Martinucci, could base some of their claims on the display of video footage that is public anyway and subject to release under the state’s Right-to-Know Law.
The district in its brief referred to it release of the video to the Erie Times-News in April, after Kim filed her suit. The release came in response to the newspaper’s request under the Right-to-Know Law.
“Anybody can request to view the footage,” according to the district’s brief, “and even if Plaintiff subjectively feels that the video was private and its distribution retaliatory in nature, the objective reality is that the distribution of the video is not only allowable but required under the applicable Commonwealth statutes.”
Any showing of the video, the district argues in its brief, also represents an action that is “de minimis in nature” under the circumstances.
Contact Ed Palattella at epalattella@timesnews.com or 814-870-1813. Follow him on X @ETNpalattella.
This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: North East schools fight back against mom’s lawsuit over drop-off line
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