Former principal's lawsuit against Angie Besendorfer dismissed

Judge David Dally dismissed a lawsuit filed by former Royal Heights Elementary Principal Larry Masters against former Joplin R-8 Assistant Superintendent Angie Besendorfer Thursday at the request of Masters' attorney.

The case was dismissed without prejudice meaning it can be refiled at a later date.

The Masters lawsuit ran into some problems earlier this year when the attorney for the Joplin R-8 Board of Education John Nicholas intervened prior to a deposition of board member Jim Kimbrough and made a motion, which was sustained by Dally, that the deposition could not address things that had happened during closed session.

The closed session meeting is when Masters alleges that Besendorfer lied and caused him to lose his job after he had already been offered a contract for the 2010-2011 school year.

In the most recent filings in the case, Masters' lawyer, Raymond Lampert, Springfield, had been fighting to force Besendorfer to talk about the closed session since she was not a board member.

The subject matter of the litigation arises out of the Joplin School Board's decision to rescind an offer of employment as a principal to Plaintiff Masters on April 15, 2010. Defendant Besendorfer was at that meeting and made or heard statements made regarding Plaintff Masters that caused the board to rescind its offer to Plaintiff.

In the motion, Lampert said that the same privilege that applies to the board members did not apply to Besendorfer.

The R-8 Board attorney intervened though there was no indication that the board ever asked him to. Though legal matters can be discussed in closed session, the board did not meet between the time the Kimbrough deposition was arranged and Nicholas' request to intervene.

Masters' lawsuit was described in the January 13 Turner Report:

According to the lawsuit, Masters, who had been Royal Heights principal since 2004, had already been offered a contract for the 2010-2011 school year when Ms. Besendorfer stepped in.

"Defendant intentionally interfered in Plaintiff's expectancy by making false representations about Plaintiff to the Joplin Schools Board of Education. Said representations included, but were not limited to, accusations that Plaintiff had violated the regulations governing administration of the MAP test."

Because of those "misrepresentations," the petition says, "The Board of Education voted on or about April 15, 2010, to rescind its motion to offer the contract of employment to the plaintiff."