LR5 school board member sues constituent for criticizing him on Facebook
The vice chair of the Lexington-Richland 5 school board has filed a lawsuit against a constituent who criticized him on social media.
Ken Loveless filed the lawsuit Monday in Richland County court against Kevin Scully, a district resident and husband of a Lexington-Richland 5 schoolteacher.
Loveless alleges that Scully has made “numerous and repeated defamatory statements voluntarily published on the internet... with specific knowledge they were false and/or with a reckless disregard for whether they were false or not.”
Among the comments cited in the lawsuit is “Crooked Ken is an unethical hypocrite and a liar.”
The board member asks for a jury trial to assess damage for the allegedly libelous statements, which Loveless says “have been circulated widely and repeated by others” over the past year on “both public and private Facebook groups.”
Loveless’ suit claims the statements were “made with actual malice, and with an intent to harm the reputation of Loveless.”
Neither Loveless nor Scully immediately returned phone calls from The State seeking comment on Tuesday. Desa Ballard of the law firm Ballard and Watson, who is representing Loveless, said that “Mr. Loveless will not be making any public comment and will rely on the courts to address any dispute.”
The lawsuit cites several comments attributed to Scully found online, including “This is what you get with an incompetent, micromanaging board majority and an ineffective and weak superintendent,” and “The board seems to be more concerned with settling personal vendettas than taking care of our district.”
The State could not independently confirm the comments attributed to Scully on Facebook.
It is difficult for elected officials like Loveless to sue for libel, as court precedent requires that a public figure prove statements about them were false and made with “actual malice” — or that they are not only false but that a critic knew or should have known they were false at the time but made the statement anyway.
Some comments cited as libelous in the lawsuit reference documented actions by Loveless on the school board.
“Be it Ken’s ethics violations, waffle house quorums or other FOIA violations, this board isn’t much for following rules,” Scully reportedly wrote.
The comment references a post-school board meeting gathering of the majority of the Lexington-Richland 5 school board at a nearby Waffle House. It’s against the law for the quorum of a public body to meet to discuss or act on public business without informing the public, even if it’s a chance encounter.
Loveless also faced criticism from other board members for his contracting company’s involvement with a construction company that built a District 5 elementary school. Loveless was working with the construction company on a project outside the district. Loveless ultimately recused himself from any discussion of the elementary school project, and a letter Loveless wrote to the S.C. Ethics Commission was met with an opinion that he should have no say over a company with which he personally had a business relationship. Loveless was not formally charged with an ethics violation.
Other comments from the lawsuit seem to invite a legal challenge with the Lexington-Richland 5 school board.
“CALL THEIR BLUFF!!!” one comment reads. “Think about it . . . what is the last place Ken or Jan (Hammond, the school board chair) want to be? On the witness stand or in a deposition where they HAVE TO TELL THE TRUTH. They are not used to that. They’ll stumble and bumble themselves into a perjury charge within the first ten minutes.”
This isn’t the first time members of the Lexington-Richland 5 school board have taken legal action against a critic. In November, the school board filed suit against a former district superintendent who had written to the district’s accrediting agency questioning how the school board had structured its contract with then-interim superintendent Akil Ross, who is now the full-time superintendent.
Former superintendent Stephen Hefner, who led the district from 2011 to 2018, was “interfering” with the district’s contract by filing the “wrongful, malicious and politically motivated” complaint, the lawsuit argues. Hefner later countersued, claiming the district was attempting to stifle his First Amendment free speech rights.
Some board members later expressed reservations about moving forward with the suit, but the board voted 4-3 to affirm the lawsuit in December, with Loveless joining Hammond, Nikki Gardner and Catherine Huddle in moving forward with the suit. Board members Rebecca Blackburn Hines, Matt Hogan and Tiffani Moore voted against.
Last summer, the board voted to censure a former board member, Ed White, for violating rules on closed door discussions after White publicly accused Loveless, Huddle and Gardner of bullying then-superintendent Christina Melton into retiring and signing a non-disclosure agreement to pay Melton $226,368 without public discussion or a vote.
Last month, the board voted on another censure motion against current board member Hines, after Hines wrote a letter to S.C. Superintendent Molly Spearman that led Spearman to criticize the district’s library book policy. Loveless and other board members claimed Hines did not have board approval to send the letter and claimed she misrepresented herself by sending it on school board letterhead.
Hines denied that she did anything wrong in sending the letter, and claimed the censure attempt was an attempt to show that, “If you act in good faith, you will be bullied and publicly reprimanded.”
The censure motion ultimately failed 4-3, with Loveless, Gardner and Huddle voting in favor of a motion that would have blocked Hines from serving in a board officer or committee chair position. The board did vote to send a follow-up letter to Spearman that was critical of Hines’ initial letter.
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