How does Bruce Karam want to amend his federal lawsuit against Utica schools?
A lot has happened since former Utica school Superintendent Bruce Karam filed a federal lawsuit against the Utica City School District and other defendants on Jan. 4, 2023, less than three months after the school board placed him on paid administrative leave.
That leave lasted until Nov. 27, 2023 when the school board fired Karam. A few days later it cut off his health insurance.
So, Karam has asked the U.S. court for the Northern District of New York to let him amend his suit to include new information and accusations, including his lawyers’ contention that he was wrongfully terminated and that his contract calls for the continuation of his health insurance.
Proposed amendments
The proposed amended suit, contained in court documents, does not change his basic case, though, against the defendants, who include the school district, the school board, former Acting Superintendent Brian Nolan, board President Joseph Hobika Jr., board Vice President Danielle Padula, board member James Paul and board member Tennille Knoop.
Those are the four school board members who voted to place Karam on administrative leave on Oct. 18, 2022 while an independent investigator looked into complaints made against Karam by two district administrators.
The suit claims the defendants engaged in a conspiracy to discredit and oust Karam. In the process, they violated both the terms of Karam’s contract and his due process rights under the federal Constitution, never making him aware of the evidence and exact complaints against him, and allowing him to defend himself.
The suit also accuses Nolan of defamation for a number of public comments he made critical of Karam’s leadership.
The suit asks for unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, attorney’s fees, interest and court costs.
Zachary Oren, Padula’s attorney, submitted a letter on Sunday asking for more time to respond to the the motion to amend the suit. The original deadline for the defendants’ response was Feb. 29.
Oren wrote that the defendants’ lawyers need more time to consider their response given Karam’s appearance in Oneida County Court on Feb. 22 on criminal charges and the adjournment of that case until March 7 to give lawyers for the prosecution and defense more time to try to work out a deal.
Karam faces felony charges of fourth-degree grand larceny and public corruption. He allegedly asked his secretaries to use work time and school supplies to send out scholarship fundraising flyers on behalf of then school board President Louis LaPolla. LaPolla faced the same charges in the case, but took a plea bargain, admitting to a charge of petit larceny.
Magistrate Judge Mitchell Katz granted Oren’s request, extending the deadline to April 1, over the objections of Karam’s lawyers who argued that the criminal case is irrelevant to the suit and “serves only to attempt and color the court against complainant.”
The proposed amendments to Karam’s lawsuit are substantial, but do not change the basic contentions that a group of school board members conspired to oust him, never presented him with written charges (as required by his contract, according to the suit), never allowed him to defend himself, encouraged (or even pressured) staff to make false claims against Karam and undermined his reputation to the point that he can no longer work in his profession.
Here’s some of the information and allegations that Karam’s lawyers argue in the proposed amendments:
Karam was a victim of wrongful termination, fired in a “manner which renders him unable to continue in his chosen career," the amended suit contends.
The defendants used the time during which Karam was on administrative leave to “hang plaintiff in the public venue,” according to the suit, without ever presenting Karam with written charges or giving him a chance to defend himself against them despite the fact that these actions are required by his contract.
Karam received a letter on Nov. 30 last year, three days after he was fired, terminating his health insurance, which should have continued under his contract, the suit claims.
Karam’s contract requires the district to pay “reasonable” attorney’s fees from any breach of contract, which has not happened. (District officials had gone to court seeking to have Karam’s contract or at least that clause nullified. The case is still pending.)
Karam is owed payment for accrued leave: 421 sick days, 60 vacation days and 10 personal days, according to the suit.
After Karam refused to support Hobika for school board president in 2022 (an election he won without Karam’s support), according to the suit, Hobika told district employees “blood would be on the walls by the time this was over.” The suit tries to show that the board’s actions against Karam were the result of a vendetta by Hobika.
The suit claims that the defendants and their agents claimed Karam was responsible for the stabbing of a minor and the waste of district funds. Nolan had pointed out that the weapons detection system put in place under Karam’s tenure does not detect knives and claimed that Karam hid this fact from board members before they voted on the purchase, a claim that Karam’s lawyers deny. A teen was later stabbed in school by a peer who had carried the knife through the weapons detection system.
Karam had filed another lawsuit against the same defendants in Oneida County Court, but that case was dismissed by Justice Scott DelConte. The proposed amendments to the federal lawsuit claim the dismissal was because DelConte “misinterpreted” the claims in that suit as personal, rather than on behalf of the public to hold the defendants accountable for their actions.
Included as an exhibit in the lawsuit is a letter from Hobika given to Karam on the day he was fired. The letter explains the school board’s action and the reasons it believed Karam could not carry on as superintendent. The letter’s penultimate sentence read: “The findings outlined in the report (of the third party investigator), the admitted inability to be able to return and effectivelyperform the duties of a superintendent of the district (after everything that has happened), the distraction and public concern associated with the multiple felony charges filed against you and the district’s need to move forward and focus on efforts to foster a cvil work and educational environment, have caused the board to consider moving to terminate your employment, effective today.”
The school district’s third party investigation into complaints against Karam found he had used offensive language, including racial and homophobic slurs, on one occasion asked employees to do non-district-related work for a relative, and created a hostile work environment.
His behavior rose to the level of bullying and Karam should be disciplined, possibly up to the level of firing, the investigator's report concluded.
This article originally appeared on Observer-Dispatch: Former superintendent Bruce Karam asks to amend Utica school lawsuit
