A former Peoples Academy teacher who accused his superintendent of pushing him out the door on trumped-up charges for criticizing her leadership has prevailed in federal court.
A jury has found that Lamoille South Unified Union Superintendent Tracy Wrend was retaliating against David Bain, a veteran teacher in the district, when she disciplined him and later recommended he be fired. Bain was awarded $150,000 in damages.
The trial in U.S. District Court in Rutland opened on Monday and lasted three days. Bain’s attorney, Chandler Matson, a lawyer with the Barr Law Group in Stowe, said the jury deliberated for about three hours on Wednesday evening.
In an email, Matson wrote that Bain is “relieved, thankful, and ultimately happy that his story was heard and affirmed by the jury.”
“Hopefully, this trial and the verdict brings about an end to a painful and costly ordeal, which has carried on for five years,” he said.
Wrend referred comment to her attorney, Pietro Lynn, who said that he and his client were “disappointed” by the decision, which “was not supported by the evidence in case or the law charged by the judge.”
Lynn, a lawyer with the Burlington-based firm of Lynn, Lynn, Blackman & Manitsky, suggested that the case is far from settled.
“We will pursue any available legal avenues to prevail, including an appeal of the verdict,” he said in a statement. “The matter is not concluded.”
Bain, who had worked in the district for 25 years, was fired in September 2014. He argued in court that Wrend began building a case for his dismissal after he called union members to a meeting where he advocated for a “no confidence” vote in the superintendent. His chief complaint was that older employees who were actively involved in the union appeared to be getting pushed out by the administration.
A few months after Bain called the meeting, Wrend began investigating his relationship with a female student, who often spent study hall in the teacher’s classroom. Bain insisted there was nothing untoward about his relationship with the girl, who was one of his daughter’s friends, but he agreed — out of desperation, he said — to a contract that included a 10-day suspension and a two-year probation.
He later bumped into a former student at the grocery store, and he asked for a reference letter in case the accusations surfaced again. Wrend heard of the meeting, and recommended to the school board he be fired for violating student confidentiality. They did.
The jury took hours of testimony over the course of several days. Bain took the stand, as did his daughter, another school employee, the student he had been accused of preying on, and her mother — all to testify on the teacher’s behalf. Only Wrend testified in her defense.
The lawsuit had initially alleged Bain’s termination represented discrimination on the basis of age and sex, violated due process, and that his employer inflicted intentional emotional distress. But U.S. District Court Chief Judge Geoffrey Crawford dismissed those claims in earlier orders.
