Lower Merion Area Lawyers, Parents Incredulous at New Laptop Lawsuit

Local lawyers and parents familiar with the Lower Merion School District and the 2010 “spycam” lawsuit brought by student Blake Robbins—over breach of privacy and other issues that resulted in an eventual $175,000 cash settlement—were mostly aghast Thursday to learn that .

The case was filed in U.S. District Court by a new lawyer for the Robbins family, Mary Elizabeth Bogan, and accuses the district of the same violations as the earlier case, in very similar legalese but with no call for a class action suit, as the original suit did.

Unlike her parents, Michael and Holly Robbins, Paige Robbins was not named with her brother as a plaintiff in that suit. In addition to the settlement fee of that action, the agreement cost the Lower Merion School District another $425,000 that the district had to pay the Robbins’ lawyers, Lamm Rubenstone LLC. (The cost imbued by the district’s own lawyers was not immediately known, but all-in costs for legal fees and damages, in addition to other costs for things like forensic analysis of computers, are generally thought to exceed $1 million, area lawyers say.)

The first case brought national attention to privacy issues regarding laptop computers, and a school district with enough resources to issue them to every high school student.

The new case may well prove more difficult for the plaintiffs, Lower Merion lawyers said on Thursday.

“They’ve got a number of procedural hurdles to get over with this before they even get to the merits of their case.”—Pam Loughman

“I think they’re just throwing everything against the wall and trying to see what’s going to stick,” said Pamela Loughman, a Merion lawyer with an office in Narberth. “It’s very unclear from the complaint, factually, whose laptop snapped these images they claim were taken of Paige Robbins.

“Are they claiming that Blake Robbins’ laptop, which we know was activated, took photographs that captured images of Paige Robbins? ... I guess that’s one issue that discovery would make clear.”

That’s if the case, filed earlier this week in U.S. District Court by Bogan, even makes it to the discovery phase. Loughman cites case law precedent indicating that the new suit could be dismissed before then.

“It’s a bit of a gray area in the complaint,” she said, referring to a deposition of a Harriton vice principal, Lindy Matsko—excerpts of which are included in the new suit.

“Two things jump out. One is [that] it’s not clear whose laptop Matsko is talking about. Two, it’s also clear that although Matsko was testifying in April 2010, she’s referring to a conversation she had with Paige Robbins at an earlier point in time.”

Limitations

That means Paige Robbins knew about an image, or images, before April 2010, Loughman said, adding, “That becomes important because there’s a statute of limitations issue here.”

Efforts to reach Bogan Thursday afternoon and Friday morning have not yet been successful. “Who did the wrongdoing here?” Bogan commented to the Philadelphia Inquirer in a story published Friday. “The school district is attempting to shift the focus to ... a 19-year-old woman standing up for her constitutional rights, when the school district has a track record of wrongdoing.”

Most of the laws cited by the new action have two-year statutes of limitations attached to them. (The seven-count lawsuit accuses the defendants of interception of electronic communication under the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act; theft of intellectual property under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act; invasion of privacy (state and federal laws); and violations of the Stored Communications Act, the Civil Rights Act and the Pennsylvania Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Act.)

The timeframe of record for the Robbins family’s knowledge of an issue with the district’s cameras is November 2009, when Blake Robbins was notified that he had been monitored for what at the time was thought to be suspicious drug activity (and later proved otherwise).

Michael Robbins, father of Paige and Blake, told a local television news reporter in February 2010 that he was concerned about his daughter’s privacy, since she, too, had a school-issued computer.

“Whether she comes out of the shower or she’s getting changed, nobody really knows if anyone was watching her at any point and that’s a little bit disconcerting,” Michael Robbins told 6ABC’s Dann Cuellar at the time.

The new lawsuit cites Matsko's 2010 deposition by saying the school district “remotely accessed the webcam feature on the laptop issued to the Plaintiff while she was in the bathroom, or in the nude, or partially dressed or sleeping or in her bedroom in a compromised state.”

‘Edited to omit key words’

Two other township lawyers reached Thursday, neither of which wished to be interviewed on the record, voiced similar thoughts. Case law not only says a given statute of limitations means when a plaintiff knew about, say, an invasion of privacy or a civil rights violation, but when a plaintiff should have known, Loughman said.

“So, when did Paige Robbins find out that a photo had allegedly been taken of her?” Loughman asked.

More to the point about Matsko’s deposition, Loughman agrees with the township’s Thursday statement that the included excerpts “appear to be misleading from the limited amount of information that is available.”

The LMSD also said the excerpts were “deceptive,” and “edited to omit key words. A full reading of the complete excerpts—which are included as an attachment to the Complaint—makes this quite clear.”

The local blogosphere was backing the school district Thursday night. 

“Who are these people,” said one Facebook commenter. “I thought [their] 15 minutes and free money were done!”

Said another, in reply: “I think the Robbins family dog is going to sue next.” A third, signing off on the subject, said simply, “These people make me sick.”

“The question for her is, ‘Are you in possession of a photograph taken by a webcam of Paige Robbins, or not?,’” Loughman said. “ ‘How do you reconcile this with the fact that an independent investigation did not churn up any photos of her?’ ”

The bottom line for Loughman: “They’ve got a number of procedural hurdles to get over with this before they even get to the merits of their case.”