Watkins Glen school faces $4M lawsuit

WATKINS GLEN--The Watkins Glen Central School District and its outgoing superintendent, Thomas J. Phillips, have formally denied allegations by a woman who filed a $4 million federal lawsuit after she was twice arrested and handcuffed on school property for failing to ask Phillips' permission to be there.
In their April 10 response to the civil rights claim by Kristina Hansen, Phillips and the school district countered that she showed "a definitive desire to precipitate her arrest."
Hansen, a Schuyler County mother of two and close follower of school district issues, claims she was merely exercising her First Amendment rights to attend public meetings and events. She said Phillips lacked legal authority to banish her from school grounds and argued that the arrests were illegal.
"Everyone knew better than to ever bar her without a court order," said Jake McNamara, Hansen's attorney. "The fact that Phillips not only barred her but used the criminal process to (enforce) it is a real failing. This strikes us as bullying."
Hansen's suit also names as defendants the Village of Watkins Glen, its police department and three officers who arrested her. They all missed the U.S. District Court's deadline for responding to the suit, but a Syracuse-area attorney, Paul Mullin, said he would be filing an answer for them shortly.
The case revolves around a letter Phillips wrote Hansen last spring after their March 11, 2016 confrontation at the entrance to the Watkins Glen High School. She had been attempting to sit in on a "staff meeting" outlining future school district staff cuts, but Phillips blocked her and called police to escort her away.
Three days later, Hansen received a letter from Phillips stating that she would need his prior written permission to enter any school district "office" or "building."
Hansen did not consider the letter legally binding, and she told school and police officials that she planned to attend the next regular public school board meeting March 21, 2016.
When she tried to enter the high school for the meeting that evening, Hansen claims, Phillips was waiting outside for her with two police officers, Isaac Marmor and Jamie Coleman.
"At the direction of Phillips, and without any probable cause or legal justification, Marmor and Coleman handcuffed (Hansen), took her into custody and arrested her" for non-criminal trespass, the suit alleges.
Before her arrest, Hansen had consulted with state officials to obtain a legal opinion about Phillips' letter. In an email response to Hansen, the New York State Committee on Open Government had stated: "Absent a court order, the Superintendent may not impose restrictions on attendance at a meeting of a public body that does not exist in law."
Also before her arrest, Hansen shared NYSCOG's response with an email to the president of the school board, Kelly McCarthy, and Officer David Waite of the Watkins Glen Police Department.
In her lawsuit, Hansen said McCarthy and Waite had a responsibility to share the NYSCOG statement with Phillips and police officials, and she said she believed Phillips knew about it before he ordered her arrest.
But in his filed response to the suit, Phillips denied McCarthy and Waite had any responsibility to notify him of NYSCOG's stance or that he knew about it before the arrest.
On April 7, 2016, Watkins Glen Village Justice Connie Fern Miller dismissed Hansen's "non-criminal" trespassing arrest.
Phillips responded a week later with superseding complaint against Hansen, this time charging her with "criminal" trespassing related to the same March 21, 2016 incident.
While Miller was deliberating on Phillips' escalated charge, a third confrontation between Hansen and school officials took place at an evening tennis match on school grounds May 4, 2016.
Hansen was sitting with her daughter, a former member of the tennis team, when school officials Erich Kramer and Kai D'Alleva called police to have Hansen removed and arrested.
Officer Jordan Walrath arrived and ordered Hansen to leave. When she told him she had a legal right to be there, Walrath "forcefully, offensively and unlawfully (placed) Hansen in handcuffs without her consent," the lawsuit alleges.
Hansen also claims the school officials were acting under a "standing order" from Phillips to use local police to remove Hansen from any school grounds -- an allegation Phillips formally denied in his response.
Village Justice Miller promptly dismissed the charge from the tennis court incident. Weeks later, Miller also dismissed criminal trespass charge stemming from the March 21, 2016 school board meeting.
In a 12-page order dated June 12, 2016, Miller concluded Phillips' letter requiring Hansen to seek his approval to appear on school property "was not 'lawful,' in the manner of its issuance, its basis, purpose, scope or implementation."
Furthermore, Miller found that Hansen had a legal right to attend the initial March 11, 2016 "staff meeting" to discuss school district staff cuts. Miller noted the presence of four members of the seven-member school board constituted a quorum. By law, such meetings are open to the public.
The federal district court docket characterizes Hansen's suit as a $4 million action.
In it, she seeks $3 million, plus punitive damages and attorney fees, from each of the following for malicious prosecution and other violations: Phillips, the school district, Kramer and D'Alleva,
The lawsuit also seeks $1 million, plus attorneys fees, from Officer Walrath for false arrest and other claims.
Hansen seeks only $1 in claims against Officers Marmor and Coleman. Her suit says that while their actions were "misguided and in ignorance of the law, they acted in good faith and at the direction of Phillips and/or their superiors" at the police department.
Patrick B. Naylor, attorney for Phillips and the school district, did not a return phone call seeking comment on their response to Hansen's suit. Naylor was appointed by the school district's insurer.
McNamara, Hansen's attorney, said he expected lawyers in the case to meet in conference and to enter mediation within the next few months. If a settlement is not reached, they will proceed with discovery, depositions and eventually a jury trial.
Meanwhile, on April 4, the school board accepted Phillips' resignation into retirement. It also adopted a resolution to indemnify Phillips, Kramer and D'Alleva for potential damages in the Hansen case.
Tuesday, April 18, the school board voted unanimously to appoint Gregory K. Kelahan as Phillips' successor as school superintendent. He will begin as Phillips' deputy July 1 and assume the top role when Phillips uses up his vacation and sick days and departs.