School district, fired employee settle lawsuit

With just minutes to go before opening arguments in a civil trial Monday afternoon, the Cherokee County School District and a former maintenance worker fired from his job in 2006 agreed to settle their dispute.

Fred Knowles, a former painter in the district's maintenance department and husband of school board member Amanda Knowles, had claimed he was fired for political reasons and for expressing his right to free speech, which included providing information to The Gaffney Ledger.

The district had contended Knowles, who was considered an atwill employee, secretly recorded a meeting of the department staff on Aug. 28, 2006, and was let go for insubordination following a subsequent altercation with his supervisor about the taping.

Neither Knowles nor his attorney, Andrew Arnold, would comment on the as-of-yet undisclosed terms of the settlement reached Monday afternoon. The school district's lawyer, Andrea White, also said she could not comment on the terms.

As of June 6, according to a court document, Knowles had been seeking $150,000 plus reinstatement to his job, or $275,000 without reinstatement, to settle the dispute. The district, according to the same court document, had countered with an offer of $70,000 but was not willing to take him back.

A formal request under South Carolina's Freedom of Information Act for the terms of Monday afternoon's settlement was hand delivered to Cherokee County School District Superintendent Dr. Bill James on Monday evening. There had been no response to the request as of Tuesday afternoon.

A jury of six men and six women was selected Monday morning in the Cherokee County Courthouse to hear the case.

Also Monday, Circuit Court Judge Mark Hayes declined to make immediate rulings on written requests by the district's attorneys to prohibit Knowles from introducing certain testimony during the trial, specifically about the hiring of school board member Sandra Greene's son Joel in the maintenance department. The district's attorneys also sought to limit testimony about an alleged 2006 SLED investigation involving a school district official that never resulted in anyone being accused of any wrongdoing, according to a copy of the district's petition. The district claimed in the written request such testimony was irrelevant and prejudicial.

Judge Hayes said he couldn't issue a ruling until he heard the testimony and performed a legal balancing test on whether such testimony was prejudicial.

Opening statements were set to begin at 2:30 p.m. Monday. Just minutes before the jury was to enter the courtroom, the lawyers engaged in several private discussions before they announced to the judge they had resolved the case.

Judge Hayes subsequently brought the selected jury into the courtroom to thank them for their service, even though they never got to hear any testimony. "Your role has been vitally important in the successful operation of our court system," he told them.

Just last week, Judge Hayes handed down an order denying the school district's request to toss Knowles' case before trial, writing: "...there is evidence that Plaintiff exercised free speech rights (symbolically and otherwise) and provided information to the newspaper about matters of public concern. There is testimony from a number of witnesses that the exercise of these constitutional and political rights were motivating factors in the decision to terminate his employment. Summary judgement is simply not appropriate where there is evidence from which a jury could find for the Plaintiff, and such is the case here."