Margolis Edelstein Attorneys Rolf Kroll and Claire Murtha secured a motion to dismiss the on behalf of the defendant municipality before the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.
In 2021, the Defendant School District had a mask requirement for everyone on school property as part of its COVID precautions. In August of 2021, Plaintiff attempted to enter the school without a mask to pick up his two kids, arguing that he was exempt from the mask requirement for disability reasons. Plaintiff was told that he either had to wear a mask or wait outside of the building. Plaintiff refused to do either and was detained by a school security officer, resulting in Plaintiff being banned from school grounds without prior written approval by the school.
Later, Plaintiff was playing with his children on Defendant School’s playground. Police arrived, confronted Plaintiff, and directed Plaintiff to remove himself from school property. Plaintiff claimed the directive was an unconstitutional infringement on his liberties and violated the Fourth Amendment. The Motion to Dismiss crafted by Ms. Murtha asserted there was no Fourth Amendment seizure. Ms. Murtha convinced the court that police’s one minute interaction with Plaintiff asking him to leave the playground was not a seizure under the Fourth Amendment. The court largely adopted Attorney Murtha’s analysis and dismissed all of Plaintiff’s First and Fourth Amendment claims with prejudice.
