Judge tosses parents' anti-mask lawsuits against Millcreek, North East school districts

Parents upset over mask and quarantine mandates for students have lost their lawsuits against the school boards for the Millcreek Township and North East school districts.

But the parents will not have to compensate the school districts for the legal costs of fighting the suits.

Accepting the arguments of the school districts, Erie County Judge Erin Connelly Marucci dismissed the two suits, filed in the spring.

She rejected the parents' request, in the suits, to remove the school directors in the two districts because they had approved facemask and quarantine requirements to help curb the spread of COVID-19.

In a 10-page opinion issued on Tuesday, Connelly Marucci said the school directors acted within their authority and discretion by requiring masks and quarantines.

She agreed with the school districts and said Pennsylvania law gives school boards broad authority to "promulgate rules and regulations regarding school buildings," including the imposition of mandates to mitigate health-related concerns.

Connelly Marucci cited longstanding precedent. She repeatedly referred to a 1894 Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision that affirmed a school district's authority to require smallpox vaccinations. The ruling in the case, Duffield v. School District of the City of Williamsport, was never overturned and "remains good law today," Connelly Marucci said in her opinion.

"The broad discretion of school districts to prevent the spread of infection and disease within their schools is a matter that has survived the test of time," Connelly Marucci said, referring to the Duffield case.

In filing the suits that requested removal, the parents cited a part of the Pennsylvania School Code, Section 3-318, that allows a Common Pleas Court judge to oust school directors who refuse or neglect to perform a duty. The law authorizes a judge to name replacements.

The parents claimed that removal was warranted because the mask and quarantine requirements — in place for much of the pandemic though lifted by March of this year — violated the students' rights under the Pennsylvania and federal constitutions.

The parents also claimed, among other things, that the School Code does not specifically allow school boards to impose mask and quarantine rules and that the masks mandates amounted to medical battery and child abuse and the unauthorized practice of medicine.

The school districts argued the mandates reflected the law as it existed at the time during the pandemic, and that the School Code empowers school boards to take action to protect student health. They also asked, unsuccessfully, that Connelly Marucci order the parents who sued to cover the districts legal expenses in fighting the suits.

Judge: Courts must defer to school boards in most instances

Connelly Marucci emphasized that Pennsylvania law prohibits the courts from acting as "super school boards" and interfering with school board matters absent a showing of illegality or bad faith on the part of a board. School boards are generally accountable to the electorate, rather than the courts, in how they perform their official duties, Connelly Marucci also said, citing precedent.

She found the school boards in both school districts acted reasonably under the circumstances, despite the claims of the parents, the petitioners in the case, against the school boards, or the respondents.

"The cruxes of both Petitions contain the assertions that Respondents acted in a harmful manner to students in their districts and violated their constitutional rights," Connelly Marucci said in the ruling. "The Court disagrees.

"The Boards were tasked with a duty to act in the face of a pandemic and make decisions they believed were in the best interest of the students, given the present state of the medical knowledge they had at the time. As in Duffield, it is not incumbent on this Court to determine whether the masking and quarantining requirements are the best methods to prevent the spread of COVID-19, as that determination is left to medical professionals, whose expertise and opinions may continually vary with newly discovered information. Throughout the pandemic and even today, masking and quarantining, along with vaccinations, are the most commonly utilized means of preventing the spread of COVID-19.

"This Court is not adjudging whether wearing masks is 'absolutely right or not,'" Connelly Marucci also said. "Reasonable minds may differ on this issue, but according to Duffield, we are to determine whether the mask mandate is 'reasonable given the present state of medical knowledge and concurring opinions of the various boards and officers charged with the care of the public health.'

"One reasonable interpretation of the mask and quarantine mandates is to stop the spread of COVID-19, the same interpretation that the MTSD and NESD Boards used in implementing the mandates within their districts. In the absence of gross abuse of discretion, it is not the Court's function to second guess the School Boards' policies."

Connelly Marucci also said the school boards' policies "did not prevent students from accessing education" because students could still take classes virtually if they refused to wear masks or while they were quarantined. "In today's day and age, access to education does not require a brick and mortar building," she said.

Parents do not have to pay school districts' legal costs

Though she sided with the school districts on the critical issues in the case, Connelly Marucci denied the school districts' request to impose litigation costs on the parents who sued. She denied that request without comment in her decision. The lawyers for the school districts — Michael Musone, Timothy Sennett and Philip J. Seaver-Hall — asked for the imposition of the costs to deter other groups from filing similar lawsuits against school districts.

A number of parents sued the Millcreek Township School District on April 25, and a group of North East parents filed a virtually identical petition on May 19. The school districts then filed motions to quash, or dismiss, the suits. Connelly Marucci held a hearing on the dismissal requests on Aug. 4.

"The MTSD School Board applauds the decision by Judge Erin Connelly Marucci," the president of the Millcreek School Board, Gary Winschel, said in a statement. "We are relieved that we can refocus our time and energy back to our students. The School Board is excited to continue working with our administration in a delivering a world-class education to every child who comes through our doors."

The superintendent of the North East School District, Michele Hartzell, said the district is "delighted regarding the opinion."

"The court reaffirmed that the Board of Directors had the discretionary power to require masks and the quarantine of students in accordance with Pennsylvania School Code," Hartzell said in a statement. "This was an unfortunate situation, time consuming and cost our local taxpayers a lot of money. This decision validates that the North East Board of Directors acted in an appropriate and legal manner in order to protect the health and safety of our children."

The North East suit sought the ouster of all nine school directors. The Millcreek case sought the ouster of seven of the nine school directors, leaving untouched a director, Michael Kobylka, who favored optional masking and a director who is new to the board, Kim Lupichuk.

Other school districts in the state have faced similar suits. Parents in other districts, such as the Warren County School District, sued because school boards refused to require masks, with the parents claiming the health of other students was jeopardized as a result.

Anti-mask suits contained 'myriad' claims, including satanism

The Millcreek School District has not required masks and quarantines for its 6,400 students since March 1. The North East School District lifted similar requirements for its 1,600 students on Feb. 28. The districts cited reduced coronavirus cases and the latest state rules.

The parents who filed the respective lawsuits did so under the auspices of a group called Erie County PA Parents Protecting Children. The lead petitioner in the Millcreek case, Troy Prozan, initially represented himself, but a lawyer from Lebanon County, J. Chadwick Schnee, later took over the case. Schnee also took on the case of the lead petitioner in the North East case, Erin Beckes, who also initially represented herself.

Schnee did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Connelly Marucci's decision.

As they raised their many arguments against masks and quarantines, the parents also pointed to recent litigation that they said supported their views. The parents agued the respective school directors should be ousted because, in requiring masks and quarantine through the beginning of 2022, they followed a September state Department of Health edict that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled invalid in December.

The state Supreme Court decision was based procedural grounds, however, and the state Supreme Court never said that school boards were prohibited from requiring masks.

Connelly Marucci in her ruling did not touch on the arguments regarding the state Supreme Court ruling from December. In a footnote, she said the parents "lay out a myriad of legal claims; however, despite multiple reviews of the Petitions, it is unclear to the Court how to break down and logically separate the many claims."

Connelly Marucci briefly acknowledged that the parents' lawyer, Schnee, raised an argument that the mask mandates violated children's religious rights. She recapped a scene that played out at the hearing on Aug. 4.

"The Court questioned Counsel under what religion can you not wear a mask, to which Counsel responded that there are certain religious beliefs (of) fundamental Christians and/or others that wearing masks is participation in some sort of satanic ritual."

Connelly Marucci relegated that explanation to a footnote, with no further comment.

Contact Ed Palattella at epalattella@timesnews.com. Follow him on Twitter @ETNpalattella.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: COVID-19 in court: Parents lose anti-mask suits against school boards