August 26, 2024
On August 23, 2024, Schlam Stone & Dolan attorneys Jeffrey M. Eilender, Joshua Wurtzel, and Paul Stretton secured a reversal in the Superior Court of Pennsylvania of the trial court’s dismissal of a defamation claim brought by a former teacher against the former principal of Philadelphia-based St. Joseph’s Preparatory School (also known as the Prep).
Claims for breach of contract and tortious interference proceeded to trial last fall against the Prep and its former president, with the jury returning a verdict against Schlam Stone’s client—who was an esteemed, tenured math teacher at the Prep and former chair of the Prep’s math department. But this teacher’s defamation claim never got to the jury, because the trial court had dismissed it years earlier. It was this dismissal the reversal of which Schlam Stone secured in this appellate ruling.
Schlam Stone’s client’s defamation claim arose from allegedly false statements made by the principal in an exit interview, which ultimately led to the teacher’s being disciplined and—despite having given 14 years of service to the Prep—having his employment nonrenewed for the following school year.
In its opinion, the appellate court agreed with Schlam Stone that its client had adequately pled a defamation claim against the Prep’s former principal, and held that the trial court erred in dismissing this claim at the pleading stage.
Read the full decision here.