Aliota's legal war with Millcreek School District escalates to federal court
Lou Aliota is taking his long-running legal dispute with the Millcreek Township School District to another level — federal court.
The former Millcreek School Board member and frequent critic of the school district is claiming that the district and current and former school directors violated his civil rights for countersuing him for defamation in Erie County Common Pleas Court in 2017, after he had sued the district for access to public records.
Among the statements the School Board said it considered defamatory were Aliota accusing the Millcreek school superintendent at the time, William Hall, of having "a disdain for citizens" in 2012, and Aliota claiming in 2017 that the board, Hall and district Solicitor Tim Sennett "violated his basic rights and obstructed his duties as a school director," according to court records. Hall and the board said Aliota made the comments on talk radio and social media.
Erie County Judge Daniel Brabender tossed the district's counterclaims in January. He ruled that the First Amendment bars a government entity from suing an individual for defamation over comments that person made about a government entity — in this case, the Millcreek School Board. Brabender cited the landmark Supreme Court ruling in the 1964 case of New York Times v. Sullivan, which established the standards for libel claims related to public officials.
The ruling was a solid victory for Aliota, who previously had come up the loser in his repeated legal fights with the Millcreek School District over public access to records and other issues.
His multiple requests of the district under the Right-to-Know Law led the district's outside counsel handling Aliota's cases to label him "a grand inquisitor" who searched for wrongdoing "when there is no evidence of corruption."
In the federal case, Aliota is using Brabender's ruling to ask more questions of the school district and to take the district and the school directors to court once more.
He is claiming the district and the Millcreek School Board violated his rights under the First Amendment by taking a legal action against him that — as Brabender ruled — was unconstitutional.
"Through its counterclaims, the Board, a government entity, attempted to silence Mr. Aliota, violate his free speech rights and have a chilling effect on free speech," according to Aliota's lawsuit, filed on June 21 in U.S. District Court in Erie. The suit contends that any "reasonable person" would have known that the school district and the School Board were violating Aliota's rights by suing him for defamation.
Aliota, the suit claims, "was forced to endure substantial legal fees and costs in defending the counterclaims." He now wants to recover those costs. He is seeking unspecified compensatory damages to recoup his legal expenses and unspecified punitive damages to punish the school district and the school directors for what the suit claims were actions that "were willful, wanton, reckless and/or otherwise ... reprehensible."
Aliota and the school district have each spent more than $100,000 defending or pursuing claims related to Aliota, according to court records and public statements.
Aliota once sat on board with some of those he is suing
The defendants in the federal case are the Millcreek School District and 17 current or former Millcreek school directors. Aliota is claiming those directors approved the filing of the counterclaims or later approved the legal fees related to the filing of the counterclaims.
The current school directors named as defendants are board President Gary Winschel, Vice President Michael Lindner and Jason Dean, Janis Filbeck, Kim Lupichuk, Janine McClintic, Sallie Newsham and Shirley Winschel. Aliota is not suing School Director Mike Kobylka, who was opposed to the School Board's actions against him.
The former school directors named as defendants are Meredith Bollheimer, Christopher Busko, Linda Cappabianca, John DiPlacido, Donnie Hosford, Rick Lansberry, Karen Morahan, John Pitzer and Donna Reese.
Aliota, 76, a retired pharmacist, served on the Millcreek School Board with a number of the directors during his one four-year term that started in December 2015. He lost reelection in 2019.
He unsuccessfully ran for Millcreek School Board in 2021. He lost the Republican nomination in May for the Erie County Council seat that includes Millcreek. He has also supported parents who sued the Millcreek School Board over its pandemic-related mask rules.
The solicitor for the Millcreek School District, Timothy Sennett, declined to comment on Aliota's federal suit. Aliota's lawyer, Brian Pulito, of Meadville, also declined to comment and referred to the language in the lawsuit to explain Aliota's position.
The district and the school directors will get to respond in court. U.S. District Judge Susan Paradise Baxter is assigned the case.
Aliota offers to settle former superintendent's defamation claim
At the same time he is suing in federal court, Aliota is seeking to settle another defamation counterclaim filed against him in Common Pleas Court. The School Board in 2017 filed that counterclaim against him on behalf of the Millcreek schools superintendent William Hall.
Brabender's ruling that tossed the School Board's counterclaim left intact Hall's counterclaim. But Brabender prohibited the school district for paying the legal fees in that case for Hall, who retired as superintendent in 2019.
Because the School Board's defamation counterclaim was unconstitutional, Brabender said in his ruling filed in January, "it logically follows (that) the Board may not attempt to silence a critic or otherwise have a chilling effect on free speech, by pursuing and funding, with public resources, Hall's Counterclaim."
Brabender said Hall could still pursue his counterclaim, though privately.
Aliota's insurance company has offered Hall $10,000 to settle the counterclaim, according to a motion a lawyer for the insurance company, State Farm, filed in Erie County Common Pleas Court on Friday.
The motion claims that the lawyer for Hall, William Weichler, who also acted as the school district's outside counsel in the counterclaims against Aliota, is balking at agreeing to the settlement over concerns that the deal still would allow Aliota to sue others associated with the Millcreek School District.
The motion asks a judge to enforce the settlement agreement.
Weichler said on Monday that he had not yet seen the motion over the settlement. He declined to comment.
As part of the proposed settlement, Aliota also agreed not to name Hall as a defendant in the federal lawsuit. Aliota also agreed to drop a lawsuit he filed against Hall and the Millcreek school directors in 2020. That suit claims that the defendants abused the legal process by filing the defamation counterclaims against Aliota in 2017. Brabender's ruling on the counterclaims did not affect that lawsuit.
Right-to-Know Law requests spurred claims, counterclaims
The case that led to the defamation counterclaims started years ago.
While a school director, Aliota sued the School Board and Hall in June 2017 to force them to release school district financial records. District officials said they had given Aliota all of the requested records, including invoices for solicitor's fees and other documents that he had requested under the Right-to-Know Law.
In a report he gave to the School Board on Aliota and the records requests in 2016, Weichler said Aliota holds himself out as a "grand inquisitor" searching for wrongdoing "when there is no evidence of corruption."
Using funding from the school district, the Millcreek School Board filed its defamation counterclaims against Aliota, including the claim related to Hall, in November 2017.
Erie County Judge Domitrovich dismissed Aliota's 2017 lawsuit in June 2020. Domitrovich, who retired in 2022, agreed with Weichler that Aliota's reelection loss in 2019 stripped him of his legal standing to pursue the suit. Aliota had claimed in the suit that he had right to get the disputed records "as a member of the Board," according to court records.
The 2017 case represented the fourth time Aliota sued over access to school district records. He lost the three other cases.
In another legal action, Aliota in 2018 filed a private criminal complaint against Sennett, the Millcreek School District's solicitor, alleging election law violations. The Erie County District Attorney's Office disapproved the complaint as lacking "prosecutorial merit," and Aliota lost on appeal.
Though Domitrovich dismissed Aliota's 2017 lawsuit, that ruling did not end the defamation counterclaims. Brabender resolved those claims by ruling in Aliota's favor in January.
In his ruling, Brabender listed the reasons the School Board said it what justified in filing the defamation counterclaims against Aliota. One reason was that Aliota's comments had "adversely impacted effective functioning of the Board."
Another reason the School Board gave for filing the counterclaims, Brabender said in his ruling, is that "defamation suits are a necessary tool of last resort to convince Aliota to refrain from further alleged defamation."
Brabender rejected that reasoning. He cited the precedent in the case of New York Times v. Sullivan.
"This is exactly the silence on free speech prohibited by Sullivan," Brabender said.
Aliota is advocating that same stance as he pursues his case in federal court.
Contact Ed Palattella at epalattella@timesnews.com. Follow him on Twitter @ETNpalattella.
This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Aliota ups fight vs. Millcreek School District, sues over free speech
