Here’s the punishment for Midlands school district after The State wins lawsuit
A South Carolina judge has issued an order that ends a four-year-long legal struggle between The State newspaper and a Midlands school district.
Judge Daniel Coble’s order issued Monday reinforces his finding that the school board of the Lexington-Richland 5 school district violated the state’s Freedom of Information Act in how it handled the dismissal of former Superintendent Christina Melton back in 2021.
Coble ordered that his decision be displayed prominently on the school district’s website for a six-month period beginning Jan. 5 announcing that the school board violated the law’s open-meeting requirements in ending Melton’s employment during a closed-door session without a public vote.
The school board at the time agreed at its June 14, 2021, board meeting to end Melton’s employment and pay her $226,368 to leave her contract early, without a public vote.
“Neither party has argued that the Settlement Agreement between Superintendent Melton and the District is unenforceable or should be set aside due to its ratification in executive session, and the Court does not find otherwise,” the judge writes in his order. “The enforceability of the Settlement Agreement, however, does not negate the fact that its execution in executive session constituted a violation of the Freedom of Information Act.”
After The State uncovered the secret agreement, the newspaper’s former senior editor Paul Osmundson filed a lawsuit alleging it violated the law’s requirement that the actions of a public body require a public vote. The school board covering the Chapin-Irmo area voted to approve the agreement with Melton after the lawsuit was filed. In his ruling, Coble decided that did not eliminate the initial offense.
“FOIA prohibits action in executive session, not merely recorded votes, and the undisputed execution of a binding settlement agreement during executive session constitutes prohibited action as a matter of law,” Coble wrote. “The Court further rejects the District’s contention that the Board’s subsequent public vote on August 9, 2021, cured or mooted the June 14, 2021, FOIA violation. As explained above, South Carolina law does not permit a public body to retroactively legitimize action unlawfully taken in executive session through later public ratification.”
Coble’s ruling ends a long-running legal saga around the case, years after Melton’s departure from the school district and after most of the board members who made the decision have left office. In 2022, Circuit Court Judge Alison Lee initially dismissed the suit on the grounds that no hearing had been scheduled within 10 days of the filing of the complaint, as required by the Freedom of Information Act.
Osmundson appealed arguing that the plaintiff had no control over when a hearing is scheduled, and the S.C. Court of Appeals ultimately reversed Lee earlier this year and sent the case back to the circuit court for consideration. That hearing didn’t happen until earlier in December.
Osmundson was represented pro bono by Nelson Mullins law firm, and the case was argued in court by Joel Collins and Patrick Quinn. The school district was represented at the hearing by Ward Bradley.
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