STATE
Shawn McBreairty was an educational advocate and journalist who resides in Hampden, Maine.
Hermon School District brought a claim for declaratory and injunctive relief claiming that Mr. McBreairty allegedly engaged in bullying and harassing behavior toward Mallory Cook, a Hermon School Department employee.
The “bullying” was criticizing her and making public records requests.
The Drummond Woodsum law firm sued him seeking an injunction that would stop him from engaging in First Amendment protected activity.
Mr. McBreairty filed an Anti-SLAPP Motion denying such behavior and otherwise highlighting that he was being retaliated against for his First Amendment-protected speech.
The motion was denied for what seemed to be clearly political reasons.
An appeal was taken and argued to the Maine Law Court (highest court in Maine), but Mr. McBreairty unfortunately passed away before a decision was reached on the merits, so the appeal was dismissed as moot.
However, Drummond Woodsum tried to employ the same theory on behalf of the Brewer school district, and a federal court held that this theory was most certainly contrary to the law, because it was obvious that the Drummond Woodsum theory that “school policies can be enforced against non students” was utterly wrong. See McBreairty v. Brewer.
Neither Maine law prohibiting hazing and bullying in schools nor school policies implemented pursuant to the same, grant to school boards or their counsel a license to threaten litigation whenever someone unaffiliated with the public schools speaks critically about a matter of public interest occurring in the schools and, in the process, identifies students or staff and criticizes them, even if the language employed would qualify as hazing or bullying in the context of school policies.
It bears stating, as well, that the irony in this case is palpable. To respond to bullying the School Department enlisted legal counsel to demand revision upon threat of further action, despite the School Department’s blatant lack of standing to pursue relief under any of the statutory provisions it cited. The School Department and its counsel effectively determined that such a tactic was justified insofar as they would have performed some kind of public service. That behavior cannot be condoned under the statutes or policies on which the School Department relies and calls for declaratory relief to that effect. McBreairty v. Brewer.
