Suit against newspaper thrown out

FALLON - District Court Judge Robert Estes dismissed the Lahontan Valley News/Fallon Eagle Standard from a lawsuit brought by three former school administrators, ruling the newspaper simply covered a controversy of interest in the community.

Former superintendent Ron Flores and assistant superintendents Gary Imelli and Don Lindeman sued the school district, the school board and Don Lattin, the school district's attorney, in July claiming defamation.

The newspaper was included in the suit because it published comments made by the board and Lattin at several meetings in which school officials questioned the use of compensatory time by the former administrators.

Judge Estes cited the Fair Reporting Privilege, a Nevada law that protects media from being sued when reporting what takes place at a public meeting or is in public documents.

"Simply put, the newspaper did nothing more than keep the citizenry informed about questions raised at a public meeting concerning an issue (compensation for public school officials) in which the public has a valid interest," the judge wrote in his order dismissing the case against the newspaper.

"The statements cited by the plaintiffs are in fact examples of accurate abridgments of incidents that took place at a public meeting, or quotes from other sources in reaction to those occurrences. The newspaper simply reported what was said and what happened, without improper editorializing," he wrote.

Lahontan Valley News/Eagle Standard editor Steve F. Lyon said the decision bolstered the fundamental role of a community newspaper and its institutional mandate to keep the public informed.

The judge noted that allowing a lawsuit against the newspaper to continue could "chill" reporting of controversial topics. The media might refrain from covering certain issues because of the cost of defending a lawsuit if the administrators' suit was allowed to go forward, Estes wrote in the order.

Flores, Imelli and Lindeman contend their reputations were harmed and they were humiliated beginning in October 2002, when Lattin presented a legal opinion at a school board meeting about their use of comp time. They claim the board knew about the use of comp time, and their contracts allowed for payment of unused vacation time.

The attorney was asked to look into the matter after the school board learned the men claimed comp time since 1996, banking those days to use for vacation and cashing out vacation time at the end of each fiscal year.

A total of $186,374 was paid to the three men by the time they left the school district. Flores retired last year, Lindeman resigned in the middle of a criminal investigation into the issue, and Imelli's contract was not renewed by the school board in July.

A four-month criminal investigation was conducted by the Nevada Division of Investigation. The report was turned over to Churchill County District Attorney Arthur Mallory. He found no violations of law, but suggested the school district might want to pursue civil action to get the money for unused vacation time repaid.

One day before a deadline the school board gave Flores, Imelli and Lindeman to repay the money linked to comp time, they filed their lawsuit. James Beasley, the attorney who filed the complaint on behalf of the former administrators, refused to comment Monday on the ruling.

The suit against the district, board and Lattin is still pending. A case conference was held recently, but no trial date has been set.

Contact Marlene Garcia at mgarcia@lahontanvalleynews.com