Sloan out on technicality

Former Marsh Junior High School Principal Jeff Sloan lost his latest battle with the Chico Unified School District July 12, when attorney Draper Gregory, serving as judge pro tem in Chico’s Small Claims Court, ruled that he’d failed to make his case. Sloan was seeking $3,033.60 in legal fees he said he’d paid in his effort to force the district to turn over the hard drive from his office computer the district seized in March 2004.

Although the district’s lawyer, Greg Einhorn, adknowledged under oath that the district had agreed to turn over the drive, and it was established that it took the district more than five months to do so, Gregory ruled that Sloan’s failure to present a formal, signed agreement regarding the hard drive vitiated his case.

An obviously disappointed Sloan had hoped to use his Small Claims Court action to allege the culpability of various district officials for the destruction of his career. As the CN&R reported in March, in 2004 former Superintendent Scott Brown and several of his top administrators tried to pressure Sloan into resigning or giving up his fight to avoid demotion by charging him with having pornographic materials on his hard drive—even though the district’s own computer forensics expert had told them the images couldn’t be connected to Sloan.