Charter school loses another fight with Manatee Schools. This one will cost it $300,000

A handful of lawsuits and appeals followed the takeover of Lincoln Memorial Academy, and former school leaders are on the hook for mounting legal fees, according to a new ruling.

Robert Cohen, an administrative law judge, awarded the School Board of Manatee County nearly $300,000 on Monday, after Manatee defended its takeover of Lincoln Memorial, a troubled charter school in Palmetto, during a four-day hearing last year.

As the winning party, Manatee was entitled to attorney fees and costs. Cohen’s judgment was made against Lincoln Memorial Academy Inc., a company owned by the school’s founder and formal principal, Eddie Hundley.

Hundley and his governing board appealed the school district’s takeover in the Division of Administrative Hearings last August. By law, the judge was required to issue a ruling just 60 days after the process started, meaning there was a small window for both parties to request information, pore over documents and strategize before the hearing.

Manatee’s team — attorneys, clerks and paralegals — spent more than 1,200 hours on the case between July 30 and January of this year, scanning “voluminous” documents and responding to “unrelenting” motions, according to the final order.

Johnson Jackson PLLC, a law firm in Tampa, represented the school board with support from Sniffen and Spellman P.A., a law firm in Tallahassee.

“In order to adequately litigate this matter, Petitioner’s legal team had to dedicate almost entirely all of their time to this matter for several weeks at the cost of time that would otherwise have been dedicated to other cases and/or employment opportunities,” the judge wrote.

Attorney Tag Feld represented the charter school during its fee hearing last December. Feld believes it was an unfair match that resulted in a loss for Lincoln Memorial and, ultimately, the burden of legal fees.

He said Lincoln Memorial’s representative in the appeal hearing, Christopher Norwood, was forced to do the same amount of work in the same time frame, without the resources of a large firm.

Norwood worked as a “qualified representative” with the Governance Institute for School Accountability, not an attorney.

“He had none of those resources and basically had to do the same thing himself,” Feld said on Tuesday evening.

Judge backs Manatee’s takeover of Lincoln

The school board was successful in defending its takeover of Lincoln Memorial, highlighting its poor finances and its failure to properly screen employees or school lunches. Cohen also cited the continued presence of Hundley, who was sanctioned by Florida’s Education Practices Commission.

Jackson, the school board’s lead attorney, charged $165 per hour during the previous hearing. During its work for the school district, a public agency, Jackson provided a significant discount on the rate charged to private clients, the judge concluded.

“Johnson Jackson PLLC’s hourly rate is extremely reasonable given the experience and expertise of its attorneys and staff, as evidenced by their CVs and affidavits,” he wrote.

Cohen issued his ruling last September, and the school’s ousted leadership filed a challenge in the First District Court of Appeal about one month later. The case is still ongoing, and the judge could award further costs and attorneys fees to the winning party.

Likewise, a successful appeal would bring the judge’s past orders, including the $300,000 in legal fees, into question, Feld said.

Judge issues a ruling

Cohen struck down all of Lincoln Memorial’s arguments in his final order on the attorney fees.

“It is important to note that, much like in the underlying case, Respondent has offered little hard evidence to support any of its legal arguments,” he wrote.

The immediate termination was a point of contention during last year’s hearing, and it remains a central argument in the ongoing efforts to appeal the hearing and regain control of the school.

To immediately take over the charter school, Manatee had to prove that Lincoln Memorial posed a danger to students’ health, safety or welfare. Otherwise, it would have to follow the 90-day termination process, which allows the school more time to form a case.

Ousted officials believe they were robbed of a chance to fix the school’s issues and to build their case. When it chose an immediate termination, the school board opted for a complicated and costly hearing, critics argued.

In his final order, the judge acknowledged that immediate terminations are “more severe and, therefore, much less common” than other means of terminating a charter. But he also noted his prior ruling, which upheld Manatee’s decision.

“With student health, safety, and welfare at risk, Petitioner did not have a ‘choice.’ Rather, the act of immediately terminating LMA’s charter was ‘the only remaining’ measure available to Petitioner at that point in time,” Cohen wrote.

He also addressed the ongoing argument about Lincoln Memorial’s documents, or a lack thereof. Before, during and after the hearing, Lincoln officials asserted that Manatee seized the campus and all of its property during the takeover, meaning the school board could provide documents, not the former school administrators.

Christopher Norwood, the school’s representative during last year’s hearing, made that argument in one of his filings.

“The School Board of Manatee County has every pencil, pen, notepad, computer, and everything else in between,” Norwood previously wrote.

Lincoln was ‘evasive and dismissive,’ judge says

Reiterating his stance, the judge said Lincoln Memorial had no excuse to falter on record requests, citing the use of digital backups at most professional organizations. He also pointed to evidence found after the takeover, which indicated that former administrators deleted certain documents or withheld electronics.

He found that Lincoln Memorial drove up the amount of legal fees by avoiding discovery requests, leading to drawn out motions and further legal battles.

“Respondent’s evasive and dismissive behavior further contributed to the foregoing challenges and required petitioner’s legal team to dedicate additional hours and attorneys to this matter that would not have otherwise been necessary,” Cohen wrote.

On a third and final argument, regarding $67,000 in audits, the judge again ruled in favor of Manatee. The school district hired two firms to review Lincoln Memorial’s finances and its electronics after the takeover, bolstering its case in the administrative hearing.

Arguing against the fees, Lincoln officials previously argued that such audits took place after the takeover and before the hearing, meaning they were unrelated to the appeal and the related fees.

The judge disagreed, calling the audits necessary in a termination case based on “egregious financial mismanagement.” He said the financial audit — completed by Carr, Riggs and Ingram — was necessary because of “LMA’s mismanagement and poor decision-making.”

“Based on a thorough analysis of this data, CRI prepared a report, accompanied by hundreds of pages of exhibits, upon which Petitioner’s legal team heavily relied on during the formal hearing,” Cohen wrote.

Sylint, the second firm, conducted a forensic audit of Lincoln’s electronics and online accounts. Among other evidence, the audit found that Cornelle Maxfield, the school’s former chief financial officer, “deleted hundreds of files” before the hearing, according to Cohen’s order.

Before issuing his final order, the judge considered Lincoln’s decision to not call witnesses at the hearing on attorney fees, and its past response to documents and deposition requests.

“At every turn in the road, Petitioner’s legal team was compelled to work harder, expend more hours, and often repeat reasonable discovery requests due to Respondent’s stubborn refusal to comply,” the judge concluded.

This story was originally published February 25, 2020 at 2:21 PM.