Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS—8th Cir.: Bank employee, fired after criticizing school masking policy, revives several claims, (Oct 21, 2025)

By Jason Albright, J.D.

She attended a school board meeting at which she held a sign that said, “MASKS = NO LEVY.”

A former bank employee, fired after she posted a Facebook comment critical of a local school board chair and the board’s mandatory masking policy, revived her First Amendment retaliation claims against the bank, its vice president, and the superintendent of schools, but not the school board or the chair, the Eighth Circuit found. A reasonable jury could find that there was a mutual understanding between the superintendent and the bank VP to retaliate against the employee for her protected speech, and at the time of her firing, it was clearly established that a government official could not engage in “conduct in furtherance of a conspiracy to retaliate against Plaintiffs for exercising their First Amendment rights.” Judge Kelly concurred (McNeally v. HomeTown Bank, No. 24-1867 (8th Cir. Oct. 20, 2025)).

High school branch. Shakopee Public Schools (SPS), according to the court, allowed HomeTown Bank to operate a branch at Shakopee High School. In early 2020, the bank hired the plaintiff to work in two branch offices, including the one at the high school. The SPS superintendent was informally involved in her hiring, but she worked for the bank. She spent about six to eight hours at the school branch each week and the rest of her time at another location. The bank paid her salary and gave her “good” to “excellent” performance ratings.

Parent of SPS students. She was also a parent of two SPS students, and she went to a school board meeting on August 23, 2021, where the board unanimously approved a mask mandate for the upcoming school year.

Confrontation of school board chair. On September 1, she confronted the school board chair over SPS’s mask policy at a parent-teacher event in what the chair described as not “civil discourse.” The bank employee told her that she would vote for an upcoming school levy in the November election, but only if SPS rescinded the mask policy.

PTO incident. On September 7, the employee attended a meet-and-greet at her child’s elementary school as a member of the PTO and as a bank employee. Another parent confronted her for not wearing a mask, and she told the bank’s VP about the interaction. The next day, the employee resigned from the PTO, and the school’s principal reported the incident to the superintendent.

Board meeting. Then the employee appeared at a September 13 school board meeting at which masking was on the agenda. She did not speak but held a sign that said, “MASKS = NO LEVY.” The board again voted to approve the mask mandate.

Facebook comment. After attending another school board meeting on September 27, the employee posted a public comment on her state legislator’s Facebook page: “I personally was really disappointed in board member [board chair] tonight. She was turning around to watch the clock time while Amanda was speaking about her daughters struggle with her disability and masking. She did it multiple times! So rude. I know that most people don’t have ill will towards these children.... but that lady showed she has NO HEART! Who does that???”

Discussion between bank VP and superintendent. The next day, the bank VP and the superintendent met for lunch. They discussed the employee and her Facebook post for about 10 minutes. The superintendent said he found the post “somewhat distasteful” and told the VP, “you can do whatever you want with [the post]. If it were my employee, I would just want to be made aware of it.” He continued, “if [you] d[o] talk to [[the employee]],” ask her “to take it down.” However, he “reiterated” at the end, he was “ask[ing] as a business partner” and “in no way... telling [[the VP]] what to do.”

Take down post? Immediately after that lunch, the VP texted the employee: “Hey... any way you could take down your post on [the school board chair]? We’ll talk later about it... but the school is pretty upset.” The employee asked who “the school” was, and the VP responded, “District offices... dang.”

Conversation with reporter. The next day, a reporter contacted the employee about her post. She told the reporter that the board chair and another school board member contacted the bank to have her take the post down. The reporter talked to the board chair, who denied contacting the bank. The board chair also talked to the superintendent, and the two “mostly discussed” the bank employee’s statement to the reporter, but also “other events” with her—such as alleged “screaming at West [Middle School]” and an alleged “meltdown at Sweeney [Elementary].” The board chair said the two did not discuss contacting the bank, though the superintendent said “it’s possible” they did.

Superintendent’s note. That afternoon, the superintendent called the VP, and they met at a coffee shop near the bank. The superintendent told the VP about the employee’s statement to the reporter and that, because of her “erratic behavior incidents,” “numerous complaints from teachers with the post,” and the false report, he would not allow her to work with students or at the bank’s high school branch. The VP asked the superintendent to “follow up with something in writing.”

He wrote, among other things, “It has been reported to me that [the bank employee] has made a post on social media (I believe on Facebook) that is very inappropriate and demeaning. It has also been reported to me that [the employee] has reached out to some form of media and wrongly accused [the school board chair] HomeTown Bank regarding this matter. Effective[] immediately, until such time as an investigation of this allegation has been completed by HomeTown Bank and Shakopee Public Schools, I am requesting you to direct [the employee] to not be present in the school zone, or any school building, in any capacity of the school district and bank partnership.”

Suspension without pay. The VP returned to the bank and called the bank president and a HR representative. The three had a lengthy phone conversation about the employee in which the VP told them about her post, her allegedly false report to the newspaper, the incident at Sweeney Elementary, and what the employee told her about the conversation with the board chair in early September. The VP also told them she was waiting for a letter she “had requested” from the superintendent banning the employee from SPS property. While the three were on the phone, the superintendent sent the letter, and the VP forwarded it to the other two. The superintendent told the VP that she could share the letter with the employee. The VP then called employee, told her that she was suspended without pay, and sent her the letter.

Discharge. After suspending her, the bank received hundreds of harassing phone calls. It investigated the employee and concluded that she had violated its standard of conduct and social media guidelines, could not perform job duties because she was banned from SPS, and improperly used her work time. She was fired on October 12.

Lawsuit and appeal. She brought a First Amendment retaliation claim against the bank and the SPS officials under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the bank and SPS worked together to fire her after she posted on social media criticizing the school mask policies. She named the bank and its VP, the SPS superintendent, the board chair, and SPS as defendants. She also brought a tortious interference with contract claim against the superintendent under Minnesota law.

The district court granted summary judgment to all defendants, and she appealed to the Eighth Circuit.

Superintendent. Reversing in part, the appeals court found a question of fact as to whether the superintendent was entitled to qualified immunity. The district court held that “there is no clearly established law that a superintendent cannot temporarily ban a person employed on school grounds from school property in their employee capacity with a private employer during an investigation into their allegedly improper conduct,” but the extent of the ban was disputed. Moreover, when the superintendent allegedly conspired with the bank, it was clearly established that a government official could not engage in “conduct in furtherance of a conspiracy to retaliate against Plaintiffs for exercising their First Amendment rights.” He was thus “on notice” that his alleged retaliatory conduct was unlawful.

VP and bank. As to the VP and the bank, a reasonable jury could also find, said the appeals court, that “the frequent communication between [the superintendent] and [the VP], including evidence of coordination in the decisions to ban [the employee] and place her on leave, shows a mutual understanding to retaliate against [the employee] for her protected speech.”

Board chair. Summary judgment for the board chair was upheld, however. That she and the superintendent discussed the plaintiff’s post in the middle of the communications between the superintendent and the bank VP was not sufficient to show that the board chair took action against the employee.

SPS. Summary judgment for SPS was also appropriate. The former employee argued that SPS may be liable for the retaliation based on SPS’s custom, policy, or practice, but custom requires evidence of “a continuing, widespread, and persistent pattern of unconstitutional misconduct,” which the employee had not produced.

Tortious interference. Finally, the former employee revived her tortious interference claim against the superintendent. The parties disputed the intentional procurement element of the tort, but whether the superintendent’s alleged retaliatory motive was the but-for cause of the bank’s alleged breach of contract in firing the employee was a genuine dispute of fact.

Finally, though the superintendent asserted official immunity, there remained a dispute about whether he violated “clearly established” law and thereby committed a willful or malicious wrong, thus losing such immunity.

Concurrence. Concurring in the judgment, Judge Kelly wrote that, in her view, the proper framework for evaluating the plaintiff’s First Amendment claims is that of Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563 (1968), because the relationship between SPS and the plaintiff, she argued, is “much closer to an employer-to-employee relationship than it is a sovereign-to-citizen relationship.” And under Pickering, Kelly urged, SPS has the burden to show an adverse effect on the efficiency of its operations.

The case is No. 24-1867.

Judge: Kobes, J.

Attorneys: Steven M. Cerny (Santi Cerny) for Tara C. McNeally. Brittany R. King-Asamoa (Gislason & Hunter) for HomeTown Bank and Lindsey Puffer. Adam J. Frudden (Ratwik, Roszak & Maloney) for Shakopee Public Schools, Independent School District No. 720, and Shakopee Public Schools Board. Zachary Aaron Alter (Felhaber Larson) for Michael Redmond and Kristi Peterson.

Companies: HomeTown Bank; Shakopee Public Schools, Independent School District No. 720; Shakopee Public Schools Board

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