TARGET OF LAWSUIT CITES FREE SPEECH.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Staff Writer

QUARTZ HILL - A Quartz Hill High School student sued by a classmate who claimed she falsely accused him of making threats following the Columbine High School shooting massacre says the lawsuit violates her First Amendment rights to free speech.

Attorneys representing the girl have filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit under a statute that guards against SLAPP lawsuits, or Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation.

``The anti-SLAPP statute is designed to protect the right to free speech. If somebody files a suit that is an attempt to get back at someone who exercised their right to communicate, the statute provides a mechanism for the defendant to come back and say you are trying to suppress my right to free speech,'' said Scott Schutz, attorney for the girl. ``It shifts the burden to the plaintiff to show he's got a likelihood of winning in the end.''

Schutz said the lawsuit, filed in February, is an attempt to suppress the girl's right to free speech that she has in a school setting.

``(She) has an unalienable right to a safe and quiet school, and to the extent she overhears another student threatening to kill people, she has a right to communicate with her teachers and peers about that.''

Lancaster Superior Court Judge Carol Koppel is scheduled to rule in January on the anti-SLAPP motions filed by the girl's attorneys and the Antelope Valley Union High School District, also a defendant in the defamation lawsuit.

The boy's attorney, Brian Reed, said his lawsuit does not qualify as a SLAPP lawsuit.

``We don't agree with those allegations. We believe our lawsuit was filed to obtain compensation for wrongs that have been visited upon the (boy and his family),'' Reed said.

Reed acknowledged it will be difficult to defeat the SLAPP motions, and Koppel said as much in court Friday.

``She indicated that it's a hard burden to meet in SLAPP cases, in the sense we have to prove our case at the time to defeat the SLAPP motions,'' Reed said.

A judge last July ordered the defamation lawsuit consolidated with another lawsuit filed by the boy and his family against the high school district and Los Angeles County. That lawsuit alleged the boy and his brother were falsely accused of trying to blow up the school.

The girl told school administrators in April 1999 that she overheard the boy, a freshman, say, ``We want to kill people, we're sick of them.'' She later reported the boy told her, ``I'm going to get you, I'm going to get you,'' after she had talked with school officials.

In his lawsuit, the boy denied making the threatening statements, and he said the girl made her allegation ``because someone was pressuring her to make the statements even though the statements were incorrect.''

The boy was one of two arrested in the incident. He was charged with making a terrorist threat and dissuading a witness. In Juvenile Court he was granted court-ordered informal probation over prosecutors' objections.

He successfully completed the probation, and the case was dismissed, officials said.

The boy's lawsuit said the boy was charged with intimidating a witness and disturbing school functions, both of which were dismissed.

According to the lawsuit, the boy was expelled from Quartz Hill High School, but the expulsion was reversed on appeal to the Los Angeles County Board of Education.

While television news accounts repeatedly referred to a plot to blow up the school, sheriff's officials said they believe the two boys arrested shared information about bomb-making and told other students they intended to blow up the school, but possessed no explosives.