IU 1 attorney seeks to have lawsuit stay in federal court
The attorney for Intermediate Unit 1 has asked a federal judge to retain jurisdiction over a lawsuit because not doing so would give a Brownsville woman a chance to have the same suit heard in Fayette County. Last week, U.S. District Court Judge Terrence McVerry issued an order to show cause why Shanna Spence’s lawsuit against IU1 and the Brownsville Area School District shouldn’t be transferred back to Fayette County for disposition. In his court order, McVerry noted that only IU1 petitioned to move the case to federal court, not the other defendants – the school district and an unspecified school guard.
In his response, filed Monday in Pittsburgh, an attorney for IU1, wrote that McVerry already has dismissed the suit in its entirety when it was filed last year in federal court. Spence refiled the suit in Fayette County as a state action earlier this year.
“(Spence) should not benefit from an unseemly tactic of filing the exact same complaint in another jurisdiction in order to avoid this court’s determination,” Paul D. Krepps wrote.
Shanna L. Spence, 20, claimed that one year spent at IU1 after being expelled from the district’s mainstream schools ruined her school career and prompted her to drop out in 2004 before her junior year.
Spence refiled the suit in Fayette County Court earlier this year. She named the district, IU1 and a school police officer as defendants.
The guard has not been served with the suit because he has not yet been found, according to Krepps’ filing.
In November, McVerry dismissed Spence’s lawsuit against IU1, an unnamed school police officer and the school district.
McVerry found that Spence filed the suit more than two years after her 18th birthday. Civil rules indicate that claims must be filed two years after the alleged wrong.
The suit claimed that in 1999, when Spence was in junior high, that she “inadvertently carried along with her to school a pair of hairstyling shears or scissors.”
When school officials found that she brought the scissors to school, she was expelled and then had to attend IU1, according to the suit.
Spence went to IU1 for an entire school year, according to the suit. During that time, Spence’s attorney Herbert Terrell claimed a school security officer, identified only as Officer Lazer in the suit, harassed her.
On Monday, the district responded and consented to the transfer of the suit to federal court.