Defamation suit against Minnesota school can proceed

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A former private school student who was publicly accused by the school principal of orchestrating a grade-changing scheme brought a defamation suit. Reversing the district court in an opinion filed Oct. 20, the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled that the lawsuit could proceed, saying it found factual disputes as to the principal’s motive, good faith, and basis for the statements.

Rebecca-Kay Hamson was enrolled at Foothills Christian Academy Society, a private institution in Backus, Minnesota, for the 2021-2022 academic year. An investigation uncovered that students were using teachers’ credentials to log into the grading system and change grades. Hamson was identified as one of the students who used a former teachers’ account to access the system, and she admitted to altering her grades.

Following her withdrawal from the school, Principal Blair Ecker held a school meeting to confront other students suspected of cheating. There were students and faculty members present at the meeting, but Hamson was not present. Ecker compared the incident to planning a “bank heist” and referred to Hamson as one of the ringleaders. However, he also implied that Hamson had low intelligence by referring to her as a “special ed” student with a “poor IQ.”

“Maybe it’s time to get up and go, pick a new crew,” Ecker apparently said to the students. Ecker did not deny making the statements.

Subsequently, Hamson filed a defamation suit against both the school and the principal. She claimed that Ecker made these statements “knowing they were false.” Because the statements were allegedly repeated throughout the community, Hamson stated that this had a “severe and negative impact” on her well-being.

Defendants generally denied the claims and asserted that they were immune from the claims or that the statements were protected by qualified privilege. The district court granted summary judgment. While it found that Ecker knew or should have known that the statements were false, and concluded that Hamson raised a genuine issue of material fact about the falsity of the statements, the court nonetheless concluded that those statements were protected by qualified privilege.

Edward Shaw, of Ed Shaw Law, who represented Hamson, called Ecker’s behavior “extremely troubling” and said Ecker went beyond merely expressing an opinion.

“When you say that someone is low IQ or special ed, even if that’s mixed into a different context, those are factual statements,” Shaw said. “I think there’s no getting around that those are factual statements.”

“Saying that someone is special education carries a pejorative. It shouldn’t, but in the real world, it does. It’s a factual statement that’s not true,” Shaw added.

Jeremy Klinger, of Drahos, Kieson & Christopher P.A., who represented Ecker and Foothills, said, “With respect to the low IQ and special education … those are more opinion-type statements than they are factual-type statements. It would be different if Mr. Ecker had stated, if Ms. Hamson had a specific IQ number, or he picked out Ms. Hamson’s particular special ed records, that would have been a different type of situation here.”

“This was more taken into the context of essentially stating, ‘Why are you doing this? This was a bad type of almost-like a bank heist situation,’” Klinger said.

However, the Court of Appeals panel — Judges Francis J. Connolly, Jon Schmidt and JaPaul Harris— found that the district court erred, finding that the statements failed to meet all of the requirements to be protected by qualified privilege as a matter of law.

Although Ecker stated that the statements were made in good faith and with a proper motive, the court found that Hamson presented evidence that Ecker knew about a long-term cheating scandal for years before the allegations and made the statements after Hamson’s mother involved the school board. It found that the evidence viewed in the light most favorable to Hamson suggested that a fact-finder could determine that the statements were not made in good faith, on a proper occasion, with a proper motive, and upon reasonable or probable cause.

The court also found that a jury should determine whether Ecker acted with common-law malice. The case was remanded.