IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA

ELAINE CUTLER, : NO: 4:14-CV-01758

:

Plaintiff, : (Judge Brann)

:

v. :

:

BELLEFONTE AREA SCHOOL : 

DISTRICT and JERRY STEINER, : 

an individual, :

:

Defendants. :

MEMORANDUM

March 16, 2015

Before the Court for disposition is Defendant Jeffrey Steiner’s Motion to

Dismiss Plaintiff’s Complaint. (ECF No. 11). For the following reasons,

Defendant’s Motion is granted and the defamation claim within Plaintiff Elaine

Cutler’s Complaint is dismissed with prejudice. 

I. BACKGROUND

On September 9, 2014, Plaintiff Elaine Cutler filed a Complaint with this

Court alleging unlawful discrimination against Bellefonte Area School District

and defamation against individual defendant, Jeffrey Steiner. (ECF No. 1). 

Plaintiff specifically alleges that, by terminating her as principal of Bellefonte

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Elementary School, Defendant Bellefonte Area School District violated the Age

Discrimination in Employment Act, Americans with Disabilities Act, and the

Pennsylvania Human Relations Act. Against individual Defendant Jeffrey Steiner,

Plaintiff alleges a state law claim of defamation. This claim of defamation arises

from statements made by Defendant in his capacity as a school board member for

the Bellefonte Area School District. Specifically, at a September 10, 2013 public

hearing before the school board, Defendant Steiner stated that he needed to

“quantify for people to understand” the decision to terminate Plaintiff. He then

described the cause for termination of Plaintiff as including her perpetration of

“three (3) Class A Felonies and misdemeanors.” 

On November 12, 2014, Defendant Jeffrey Steiner filed a Motion to Dismiss 

and an accompanying Memorandum of Law arguing that he was entitled to

absolute immunity as a “high public official” and that Plaintiff’s complaint failed

to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. (ECF No. 12). On November

26, 2014, Plaintiff filed a Brief in Opposition to Defendant’s Motion arguing that

Defendant Steiner was ineligible for absolute immunity because his statements

went beyond his official authority as a member of the Bellefonte Area school

board. (ECF No. 14). Defendant subsequently filed a Reply Brief on December 3,

2014, (ECF No. 15), bringing the case to its present posture. 

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II. DISCUSSION 

A. MOTION TO DISMISS STANDARD

When considering a motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil

Procedure 12(b)(6), a court must view all allegations stated in the complaint as

true and construe all inferences in the light most favorable to plaintiff. Hishon v.

King & Spaulding, 467 U.S. 69, 73 (1984); Kost v. Kozakiewicz, 1 F.3d 176, 183

(3d Cir. 1993). However, “the tenet that a court must accept as true all of the

[factual] allegations contained in the complaint is inapplicable to legal

conclusions.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (internal citations

omitted). In ruling on such a motion, the court primarily considers the allegations

of the pleading, but is not required to consider legal conclusions alleged in the

complaint. Kost, 1 F.3d at 183. “Threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of

action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice.” Iqbal, 556 U.S.

at 678. At the motion to dismiss stage, the court considers whether plaintiff is

entitled to offer evidence to support the allegations in the complaint. Maio v.

Aetna, Inc., 221 F.3d 472, 482 (3d Cir. 2000).

A complaint should only be dismissed if, accepting as true all of the

allegations in the amended complaint, plaintiff has not pled enough facts to state a

claim to relief that is plausible on its face. Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550

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U.S. 544, 561 (2007). “Determining whether a complaint states a plausible claim

for relief will ... be a context-specific task that requires the reviewing court to

draw on its judicial experience and common sense.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 663–664.

“In considering a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, we must be mindful that federal courts

require notice pleading, as opposed to the heightened standard of fact pleading.”

Hellmann v. Kercher, No. 07–1373, 2008 WL 1969311 at * 3 (W.D.Pa. May 5,

2008) (Lancaster, J.). Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8 “requires only a ‘short

and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief,’ in

order to ‘give the defendant fair notice of what the ... claim is and the grounds on

which it rests’.” Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. at 554 (quoting Conley

v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47 (1957)). However, even under this lower notice

pleading standard, a plaintiff must do more than recite the elements of a cause of

action, and then make a blanket assertion of an entitlement to relief. See

Hellmann, 2008 WL 1969311 at *3. Instead, a plaintiff must make a factual

showing of his entitlement to relief by alleging sufficient facts that, when taken as

true, suggest the required elements of a particular legal theory. See Twombly, 550

U.S. at 561. “[W]here the well-pleaded facts do not permit the court to infer more

than the mere possibility of misconduct, the complaint has alleged—but it has not

“shown”—“that the pleader is entitled to relief.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679 (quoting

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FED.R.CIV.P. 8(a)).

The failure-to-state-a-claim standard of Rule 12(b)(6) “streamlines litigation

by dispensing with needless discovery and fact-finding.” Neitzke v. Williams, 490

U.S. 319, 326–27 (1989). A court may dismiss a claim under Rule 12(b)(6) where

there is a “dispositive issue of law.” Id. at 326. If it is beyond a doubt that the

non-moving party can prove no set of facts in support of its allegations, then a

claim must be dismissed “without regard to whether it is based on an outlandish

legal theory or on a close but ultimately unavailing one.” Id. at 327.

B. ANALYSIS

Accepting as true all of the allegations contained in Plaintiff’s Complaint,

the Court nevertheless finds that Defendant Jeffrey Steiner is entitled to absolute

immunity because of his status as a “high public official.” Because this immunity

exempts him from liability for defamatory statements, this Court grants

Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff’s claim of defamation. Furthermore,

because a finding of absolute immunity for Defendant is entirely dispositive as to

Plaintiff’s defamation claim, the Court’s analysis will be restricted to that

discussion.

In Pennsylvania, high public officials are exempted from “all civil suits for

damages arising out of false defamatory statements and even from statements or

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actions motivated by malice, provided the statements are made or the actions are

taken in the course of the official's duties or powers.” Smith v. Borough of

Dunmore, 633 F.3d 176, 181 (3d Cir.2011) (quoting Lindner v. Mollan, 544 Pa.

487, 677 A.2d 1194, 1195 (Pa.1996)). This doctrine of absolute immunity for

high public officials has been expanded beyond defamation to exempt officials

from liability arising from claims of retaliatory discharge, loss of consortium,

invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Kobrick v.

Stevens, No. 13-2865, 2014 WL 4914186 at *14 (M.D.Pa. Sept. 30, 2014)

(Mannion, J.) (citing Kelleher v. City of Reading, 2001 WL 1132401, at *4

(E.D.Pa. Sept. 24, 2001)). By excusing high public officials from civil suit for

defamatory statements made while exercising their duties and powers, absolute

immunity fulfills the deeper purpose of encouraging frank discussion by high

public officials and thus, protecting “society's interest in the unfettered discharge

of public business and in full public knowledge of the facts and conduct of such

business.” Osiris Enterprises v. Borough of Whitehall, 877 A.2d 560, 566

(Pa.Cmwlth. 2005) (citing Montgomery v. City of Philadelphia, 392 Pa. 178, 182,

140 A.2d 100, 102 (1958)).

To determine if an individual defendant qualifies as a high public official

for purposes of absolute immunity, the court must consider, on a case-by-case

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basis, “the nature of [the official’s] duties, the importance of his office, and

particularly whether ... he has policy-making functions.” Behne v. Halstead, No.

13-0056, 2014 WL 1689950 at *26 (M.D.Pa. April 29, 2014) (Rambo, J.) (quoting

Zugarek v. Southern Tioga School Dist., 214 F.Supp.2d 468, 479 (M.D.Pa. 2002)

(McClure, J.)). Applying these factors to public school district officials, the late

Judge James F. McClure, Jr., of this Court, stated that superintendents and school

board members “entrusted with a policymaking role for the School District, are

high public officials entitled to absolute immunity from state law suits when acting

in their official capacity.” Zugarek, 214 F.Supp.2d at 479; see also Kohn v.

School Dist. of City of Harrisburg, 817 F.Supp.2d 487, 512 (M.D.Pa. 2011)

(Caldwell, J.); Poteat v. Harrisburg School Dist., 33 F.Supp.2d 384, 396 (M.D.Pa.

1999) (Caldwell, J.). This entitlement to absolute immunity is unlimited for

claims of defamation so long as the statements made by the official are made in the

course of his official duties and within the scope of his authority. See McKibben

v. Schmotzer, 700 A.2d 484 (Pa.Super.Ct.1997). While the initial determination

of absolute immunity is a question of law, the question of whether the privilege

has been abused is to be resolved by a jury “unless the facts are such that but one

conclusion can be drawn.” Montgomery v. City of Philadelphia, 392 Pa. 178, 184

fn. 4 (1958). 

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In the present case, Plaintiff concedes that Defendant Steiner is a high

public official who would be entitled to absolute immunity for the alleged

defamatory statements he made while serving as a Bellefonte Area school board

member. Plaintiff argues, however, that Defendant’s comments were “well

outside [his] position and authority as a member of the Bellefonte Area School

Board.” Therefore, Plaintiff argues that these statements constitute an abuse of the

absolute immunity privilege and that Defendant is subsequently not entitled to its

protection. 

Although Plaintiff concedes that the determination of absolute immunity is a

question of law appropriate for the court, she argues that the subsequent

determination of whether the privilege has been abused is a question of fact which

should be reserved for a jury. In support of this proposition, Plaintiff cites Graham

v. Avella Area School District in which the court denied a motion to dismiss a

defamation count against a school director on the grounds that “the plaintiff may

be able to prove facts which establish the defendant is not entitled to claim

immunity because his actions went beyond his official authority.” Graham v.

Avella Area School District, No. 05-1344, 2006 WL 1669881 at *5 (W.D.Pa. June

14, 2006). Further review of this opinion reveals, however, that the court’s

conclusion was based on the plaintiff’s allegations that the defendant had falsely

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accused her of having a sexual affair with a former principal and that the

defamation continued long after the plaintiff's last day of work. Id. 

Unlike the plaintiff in Graham, Plaintiff in the instant case did not allege

facts which could establish that Defendant’s actions went beyond his official

authority. Specifically, unlike in Graham where the defendant school board

member was alleged to have continued making defamatory comments after the

plaintiff’s last day of work, Defendant Steiner is alleged to have made all the

comments at issue while at the public school board hearing and at no other time. 

Furthermore, Defendant in the instant case was commenting on the school

district’s cause for terminating Plaintiff. Although his characterization of the

school district’s cause may have been excessive, indeed regrettable, discussion of

Plaintiff’s termination and his opinion concerning the board’s vote for termination

falls within his authority as a school board member. Therefore, unlike the

defendant’s egregious actions in Graham, only one conclusion can be drawn from

the Plaintiff’s allegations concerning whether the privilege of absolute immunity

has been abused. The determination is, therefore, a question of law appropriate for

court disposition.

III. CONCLUSION 

In sum, this Court finds that Defendant was entitled to absolute immunity

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concerning the statements made at the September 10, 2013 public hearing and that

his statements did not constitute an abuse of that immunity. As previously

discussed, these statements were made concerning Plaintiff’s termination as a

district employee and were within Defendant’s authority to make as a school board

member at a public meeting. Because the veracity or existence of malice behind

Defendant’s statement is immaterial as long as the high public official is acting

within his duties or powers, Defendant is entitled to absolute immunity as a high

public official against Plaintiff’s claim of defamation.

For the foregoing reasons, Defendant Jeffrey Steiner’s Motion to Dismiss

Plaintiff’s Complaint will be granted. An appropriate Order follows. 

BY THE COURT: 

/s Matthew W. Brann

Matthew W. Brann 

United States District Judge

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