Former Employee Sues Weston Schools For $5 Million

WESTON, CT — A former schools employee has filed a $5 million defamation lawsuit against Weston Public Schools.

David Lustberg, who was transportation coordinator for the district for ten years through February 2019, filed the suit on Thursday. It names the Weston Board of Education, Superintendent William McKersie, and Human Resources Director Lewis Brey as defendants in the case.

Lustberg claims in the suit that he was wrongfully fired from his jobs as transportation coordination, energy manager and softball coach by McKersie, who alleged that Lustberg stole thousands of dollars of gasoline for his personal use. The suit also claims that McKersie wrote a defamatory email to parents stating that an "investigation revealed that Mr. Lustberg, over a period of years, has repeatedly misappropriated fuel from the district," which Lustberg disputes.

The suit states that Lustberg regularly worked late- and off-hours, using his personal vehicle. He did not submit expense reports for mileage reimbursement as "preparing reimbursement forms was burdensome, time-consuming and 'not worth the effort.'" Lustberg instead admits to taking his mileage reimbursement in fuel directly, but the suit argues that he had "full authority to do so because of his autonomous control over the Transportation Department." According to the filing, the value of the fuel that he took was less than the amount of money he would have been reimbursed at the IRS-specified rates had he submitted proper expense reports to the school district.

The lawsuit contends that McKersie did not perform a thorough investigation, only reviewing video tapes of the alleged theft and computer records. The suit also states that Lustberg's termination hearing was just a "perfunctory exercise as the decision had already been made to terminate" his employment. McKersie used Lustberg's use of school gasoline "as a pretext to fire him to cut salary per the BOE's instruction to cut costs," hoping that shedding his salary would somewhat ameliorate the $500,000 cost to pay for clean-up of a sewage system failure in February 2019 according to the lawsuit.

According to the claim, Lustberg "suffered and will continue to suffer damage, including economic damage, substantial and perhaps irreversible injury to his reputation, and damage to current and prospective business relations. In addition, Plaintiff and his family have suffered extreme humiliation and emotional distress and suffering, strains upon his marriage, embarrassment, anxiety, stress, emotional and mental upset, loss of sleep, and loss of time from personal pursuits."

Lustberg is seeking $5 million in damages, according to the lawsuit.