PITTSBURGH – Attorneys for the Vandergrift Borough Council are looking to dismiss a complaint from one of its council members who accuses her colleagues, the mayor, chief of police and a police officer of engaging in a campaign of defamation and slander intended to ruin her reputation and drive her out of public office.
Karen McClarnon filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania on May 28, versus the Borough of Vandergrift, Kathy Chvala, Christine Wilson, John Uskuraitis, Thomas Holmes, Lenny Collini, Barbara Turiak, Joseph M. Caporali and Nathan Rigatti. All parties are based in Vandergrift.
McClarnon says she has criticized a number of issues in the Borough’s operation, such as its alleged lack of written or standardized operating procedures, activity taking place at the Casino Theatre, fiscal management of the borough-owned pool, alleged intimidation at the hands of local police targeting her family, alleged nepotism and the Borough Council allegedly conducting secret meetings in violation of the Pennsylvania Sunshine Law for government transparency.
McClarnon adds local officials have engaged in at least two dozen forms of retaliation against her, including but not limited to, allegedly declining to provide a police report from when her husband was pulled over in front of the plaintiff’s home; the Borough Council allegedly refusing to give her prior notice of meetings; Collins allegedly spreading false rumors she had been fired from her prior role as principal at Cardinal Maida Academy for theft and Caporali allegedly telling an officer that the plaintiff had phoned into a Borough Council meeting while drunk, when she was only out of town and in no way intoxicated.
“All of these actions have been performed in an attempt to keep plaintiff McClarnon from participating in Vandergrift Borough Council business and to prevent her from carrying out her constitutionally-protected and mandated duties in retaliation for her criticisms of the borough and of council,” the suit states.
“All of the foregoing actions have been motivated by defendants’ desire to silence plaintiff McClarnon who has been an outspoken, vocal minority critic of defendants’ policies and actions as majority members of Vandergrift Borough Council.”
UPDATE
On July 27, the Borough filed a motion to dismiss McClarnon’s lawsuit with prejudice for failure to state a claim through a member of its counsel, Karin M. Romano of Thomas Thomas & Hafer.
Defense counsel made a number of supporting argument to accompany the motion, the first being that all [civil rights] claims against defendants Turiak and Rigatti are legally insufficient, in that the facts pled in the complaint fail to demonstrate their personal involvement in any alleged violation of plaintiff’s rights.
“Plaintiff’s procedural due process claim (Count One) is legally insufficient because the complaint fails to show that she was deprived of a constitutionally protected liberty or property interest,” Romano said.
“Plaintiff’s equal protection ‘class of one’ claim (Count Two) is not cognizable because it would require impermissible judicial inquiry into political motives, and because a rational basis exists as a matter of law for a legislator to allegedly treat a political opponent differently than a political ally.”
Romano continued that McClarnon’s 14th Amendment defamation claim (Count Three) is legally insufficient because the complaint fails to show that she was deprived of any constitutionally protected interest in connection with the alleged defamatory statements.
Moreover, Romano stated McClarnon’s 1st Amendment retaliation claim (Count Four) is not cognizable because it would “involve judicial review of alleged conduct of a political nature, and because the alleged retaliatory conduct is not sufficiently extreme, as a matter of law, to deter a ‘person of ordinary firmness’ from exercising her First Amendment rights as an elected official.”
Romano further invoked the doctrine of qualified immunity for the individual defendants and again asserted that McClarnon’s rights were not violated by them.
“The individual defendants are entitled to qualified immunity as to all claims, because the complaint fails to allege facts showing the violation of any clearly established constitutional right,” Romano said.
“All claims against the Borough and the individual defendants in their official capacities are legally insufficient, because the complaint fails to allege facts demonstrating any violation of plaintiff’s rights by any Borough official or employee.”
For counts of violation of due process, defamation and violation of liberty interest and violation of free speech, the plaintiff is seeking an injunction restraining the defendant from continuing violation of any of the alleged acts taken against her, damages in the form of costs, attorney’s fees and such other and further relief as is deemed appropriate.
The plaintiff is represented by William Lafferty in Pittsburgh.
The defendants are represented by Thomas P. McGinnis, Karin M. Romano and Samuel G. Dunlop of Thomas Thomas & Hafer, also in Pittsburgh.
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania case 2:20-cv-00779
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com