Court rules against former Lincoln teacher in lawsuit

LINCOLN – A former middle school teacher who filed suit in 2012 claiming her relationship with co-workers went sour because of her advocacy for her special needs son doesn’t have a case, the state Supreme Court has ruled.

Affirming a lower court decision, the Supreme Court said Pamela Azar’s discrimination and hostile workplace claims were either procedurally flawed, brought against the defendants after the statute of limitations had expired or backed by insufficient evidence.

Azar’s claims were initially dismissed in 2016 at the tail end of a jury trial in Superior Court. The case wasn’t decided by the jury, however, because the judge granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss before the jury began deliberating.

During the trial, Azar had argued that co-workers and the school principal retaliated against her because she advocated for educational services for her disabled son, who was then a student in the town’s public school system. She testified that she was ignored by other teachers at meetings, stripped of responsibilities and often interrupted at work by members of the Special Education Department to discuss issues involving her son.

A principal allegedly told her he did not “want to get involved” when she complained she was “feeling isolated by the teachers,” according to the high court’s ruling.

Azar also testified about the truancy charges the Lincoln Education Department had filed against her son, who was absent most of the 2009-2010 school year. She said she had been exploring other educational venues for her son and that she was opposed to the LED’s decision to enroll him at the Bradley School in Providence. That placement led to a separate lawsuit filed by Azar in U.S. District Court as well as a series of hearings in Family Court. Eventually, Azar’s son was placed in another school and the LED dismissed the truancy charges against the boy.

Azar was represented by counsel during the Superior Court trial, but she appealed to the high court acting as her own lawyer and appeared before the panel on Nov. 2 to personally argue on her own behalf.

She contended the trial justice erred in granting the motion for dismissal as a

matter of law, asserting that she had “presented sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to find in her favor on her hostile work environment and retaliation claims.”

In a decision issued Dec. 7, however, the high court disagreed, noting her testimony that all of the claimed grievances occurred after the LED filed truancy charges against her son in 2006 and lasted until she took a leave of absence in 2008.

The high court ruled that Azar’s hostile workplace claims were raised too late to surmount the three-year statute of limitations under the Rhode Island Civil Rights Act. The court said Azar had also sued under the Civil Rights of People with Disabilities Act, but the claim faltered on those grounds as well because she had failed to exhaust her administrative remedies, including the filing of a preliminary complaint with the state Human Rights Commission, before turning to the courts.

The court also determined that Azar’s allegations that the education department had retaliated against her by filing truancy charges against her son were not supported by the evidence.

“In essence, she argues that Lincoln filed the charges only because of her disagreement with her son’s educational placement,” the high court said.

But the jurists said that, like the trial justice, they agreed that the dismissal of the charges was purely evidence that the defendants were working towards solving the problem of finding an appropriate school placement for Azar’s son.

“Therefore, after examining the evidence in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, we conclude that the plaintiff failed to provide sufficient evidence such that a reasonable jury could find that Lincoln’s actions were retaliation for the plaintiff’s advocacy for her son,” the high court said. “Accordingly, the Superior Court’s judgment is affirmed.”