Rick Bertrand's defamation lawsuit against Sioux City schools dismissed

SIOUX CITY (KTIV) – A defamation lawsuit involving the Sioux City Community School District and two of its officials has been dismissed.

Local businessman Rick Bertrand first filed the lawsuit in 2023 against the district, former district operations manager Brian Fahrendholz and former school board president Dan Greenwell. In the lawsuit, Bertrand alleged that misrepresentations about business practices scuttled the land deal with the county.

On Thursday, November 14, 2024, the judge dismissed the case against the district and Fahrendholz. Greenwell had been dismissed from the case before Thursday’s decision.

In court documents, Judge Patrick Tott ruled that Bertrand could not prove that any defamatory statements were made on or after January 9, 2021. Since the case was filed on January 9, 2023, the two-year statute of limitations begins in 2021. The judge made a point to clarify that in Iowa the statute of limitations begins when the lawsuit is filed, not when the person discovers or reasonably should have discovered the alleged statements.

Bertrand’s lawsuit alleged that Fahrendholz made comments to the Sioux City School Board starting in 2018 that said Bertrand had taken dirt from a project at North High School and failed to compensate the district for that dirt.

According to Bertrand, he learned of these comments in 2023 while talking on the phone with then-School Board President Greenwell. Bertrand said he called Greenwell to find out why the board didn’t want to sell him a lot near a district school.

Bertrand said that he wanted to build flats on the land and that he was in talks with other regional officials, saying that the sale was possible. He says that when he reached out to Greenwell to finalize the purchase, he learned of Fahrendholz’s allegations that he had stolen land from an area project.

In the lawsuit, Bertrand claimed that he never received “even one meter” of land from the North High School project.

“As a result of (Sioux City Community School District’s) reliance on misrepresentations made by Fahrendholz, (the district) reversed course in electing to sell (the land) regardless,” Bertrand’s lawsuit alleged.

Court documents show Bertrand admitted he could not prove defamatory statements were made within the statute of limitations. He assumed that “because these statements were made so frequently” they would fall within the scope of the law.

The judge’s decision stated that Fahrendholz and Greenwell claimed that they had not talked about the Northern High soil project since at least January 1, 2021.

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