COLUMBIA — A judge is close to shutting down one of two libel and defamation suits filed by former Lexington-Richland School District Five Vice Chairman Ken Loveless against a parent.
Loveless filed the suit in March alleging district parent Leslie Stiles endorsed comments on social media, including some referring to Loveless as "crooked Ken," "unethical" and a "liar," from her position as an administrator of a Facebook group where the comments were posted.
"As far as we can tell, (Stiles) never deleted or blocked, or anything, postings or comments ... She just let people run wild," said Desa Ballard, an attorney representing Loveless. "Under common law, she ratified, endorsed and further published the defamatory statements that were made."Â
Jean Toal, a retired State Supreme Court chief justice presiding over the hearing, recently ruled against Ballard's claim. The judge said publication on "a website of this type" cannot be attributed in court to the online forum's administrator, and that Stiles is not responsible for verifying all information posted in the Facebook group.
"It's only if that material is attributed to Mrs. Stiles that she would be liable for any action regarding defamation, libel or slander," the judge said.
Toal said she is leaning toward dismissing the case and asked attorneys to back their positions on whether the case should move forward.
The Facebook group known as "Deep Dive into D5," created by Stiles in 2021, has language on its home page that reads, "All information posted is a result of much research and analysis."
Against Ballard's argument that Stiles undertook a duty to monitor the information in the group, Toal ruled that Stiles's disclaimer is still not an undertaking of legal responsibility to verify the truth of what other people post.
Chris Kenney, an attorney representing Stiles, argued that even if his client had made the statements in question — which included comments referring to the school board as crooked or "dumb leaders" — all of the statements were either about Loveless in his capacity as a public official or about the school board as an entire body.
"This is just frivolous and we would like for the court to say that," Kenney said.
He also said the social media group administrative duties argument would be for a negligence case, and instead Ballard was arguing that Stiles acted with "actual malice," not negligence.Â
Loveless did not attend the Dec. 2 hearings. He no longer serves on the Lexington-Richland Five school board after a narrow defeat on the Lexington County side after a state-required recount of the Nov. 8 election results.
No action was taken in a second libel suit and defamation suit filed by Loveless in March against Kevin Scully, a newly elected Lexington-Richland Five board member.
At the hearing Scully's attorney Taylor Smith asked the court to allow further investigation into the truth or falsehood of Scully's statements that Loveless claimed are defamatory, but Toal made no ruling in their case.
A month before the libel suits, another Lexington-Richland Five parent filed a complaint about Loveless with the state Ethics Commission, alleging that he failed to recuse himself from 2021 school board decisions on construction Piney Woods Elementary School in Chapin.
Loveless' construction company was a subcontractor on previous projects with Contract Construction, which won a bid to build the school.
Loveless has said his company did not work on the school. Loveless maintained that he did not act unethically or use his power as a school board member to influence decisions that would affect his own company's stakes. Loveless said participating in meetings where the project was discussed, visiting the construction site and asking questions of the school's builders and architects were all part of his job.
Loveless faces a final ethics hearing in February.
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