The offices of the Douglas County School District are located in the historic Minden School.
The end result of the legal wrangling is that four Douglas County school board trustees are off the hook for $70,000 of $166,081.16 in legal fees because the school district never took a position in a records case.
Douglas County District Judge Thomas Gregory ruled in an order regarding indemnification that trustees were liable joint and severally with the school district, but that the district had to indemnify the trustees.
“The answer to the question of whether the Trustees failed to ‘cooperate in good faith in the defense of the action’ as per NRS 41.0349 (2), is no,” Gregory stated.
Douglas County District Judge Thomas Gregory ruled in an order regarding indemnification on May 29, reversing his preliminary order that trustees were liable for $70,000 of the $153,758 joint and severally with the school district.
“The answer to the question of whether the Trustees failed to ‘cooperate in good faith in the defense of the action’ as per NRS 41.0349 (2), is no,” Gregory stated.
In a May 30 statement to the Record-Courier, attorney Richard McGuffin said the order was issued because the district and the trustees asked Gregory to issue an opinion regarding indemnification, meaning whether the district would have to pay any amounts owed by the trustees.
“The last paragraph answers that question,” he said. “The school district must pay for the amount, because the district never argued or proved that the trustees failed to cooperate in good faith in the defense of the action. This is technically true,” he continued. “However, the trustees controlled the defense of the action the entire time, and it was all bad faith.”
“Trustees Jansen, Dickerson, and Englekirk have demonstrably squandered hundreds of thousands of Douglas County School District funds in a protracted ultimately futile effort to evade their legal obligations as School Board Trustees,” McGuffin said in the statement.
The original lawsuit was filed in August 2023 by petitioners Joe Girdner, Robbe Lehmann, Dean Miller, and Marty Swisher seeking public records requested in May and July 2023 from the Douglas County School District and school board trustees David Burns, Susan Jansen, Katherine Dickerson, and former board member Doug Englekirk.
The records requested were communications to, from, and between the four trustees regarding various topics, which the petitioners believed were being discussed on the trustees’ personal devices to conduct board matters or receive instruction from outside sources.
In a statement on May 30 from former Douglas County School District Attorney Joey Gilbert on the order, he said he handled the case with integrity, and the court ruling proves that.
“Judge Gregory found Trustees acted within their duties, followed our legal guidance, and showed no bad faith,” said Gilbert. “This lawsuit was pure lawfare, a political stunt by sore losers who lost the school board election and their control. They bombarded us with frivolous public records requests and baseless Open Meeting Law claims, wasting school resources that belonged to our kids.”
Gilbert represented both Douglas County School District and the trustees before it was determined to be a conflict and separate attorneys, Frank Gilmore and Robert Smith, were hired to represent the trustees and district during the proceedings.
Gilbert was hired as the Douglas County School District legal counsel from July 19, 2023, to Dec. 11, 2024.
“I was hired to remove the superintendent, restore the original bylaws which were changed during the ‘plandemic,’ and launch a special counsel investigation, which uncovered troubling issues that were swiftly addressed,” said Gilbert. “My job done, I resigned.”
According to the petitioners, the trustees failed to comply within the timeline requested and proceeded with an evidentiary hearing, which was held before Judge Gregory on March 28, 2024. Only two of the seven witnesses expected to provide testimony did before a settlement was reached.
“Despite ample time and opportunity, these trustees falsely claimed for nearly a year that documents sought in multiple public records requests ‘did not exist,’ only to later produce 6,600 responsive pages. Their decision to replace competent, experienced legal counsel with an inexperienced attorney further exacerbated the District’s financial harm,” said McGuffin.
The settlement stated the trustees had to perform further search both in-house and by a mutually agreed third party, the district would be responsible for paying attorney costs for the petitioners, and the district would provide training to the trustees on Nevada’s open record’s law.
On April 9, 2024, the settlement went before the Douglas County School Board, which Trustee Yvonne Wagstaff made a motion to not approve and to have attorneys negotiate a more favorable term for the district. The motion passed 3-0, with trustees Jansen, Dickerson, Englekirk, and Burns abstaining from voting due to a conflict of interest.
“They (the three trustees not named in the lawsuit) wanted Trustees Jansen, Burns, Dickerson, and Englekirk to be held accountable for the financial harm inflicted on the district as a result of their false claims,” said McGuffin.
On Feb. 21, 2025, Judge Gregory issued an Order Regarding Petitioner’s Attorney’s Fees and Costs, which awarded petitioners $166,081.16 in attorney’s fees and costs.
McGuffin explained that the reward was the result of the Trustees and the District’s “because of the Trustees,” failure to comply with NRS 239.
“While the Order accurately states ‘DCSD never, including now, claimed that the trustees did not cooperate in good faith with the defense,’ this truth highlights the ultimate manipulation. For the entirety of this litigation, Trustees Jansen, Burns, Dickerson, and Englekirk acted for and on behalf of DCSD, effectively shielding themselves from direct liability and accountability.”
Petitioner Robbe Lehmann said the four involved trustees prevented the district from making the argument whether the trustees acted in good faith.
“Trustees Wagstaff, Kangas and Gilkerson were going down that road making that argument and when the four saw where it was going, they took control of the process, in violation of Nevada ethics laws, and stopped the argument from happening,” said Lehmann.
“(They) claim that the Writ only found that the trustees didn’t provide the documents fast enough and that they were always willing to provide them,” said Lehmann. “This to anybody who has followed the case,is complete nonsense. They claimed for over a year that the documents didn’t exist.”
Lehmann further noted that the Ethics Commission confirmed the four trustees violated Nevada’s Ethic Laws.
“But they never went back and reheard the item,” said Lehmann. “They never tried to right the wrong that they made when they violated the laws. They let it stand because it was in their best interest.”