The stone entry to Saint Bernard's boys' school in Manhattan. Photo: Ryland West/ALM

Two families at St. Bernard's School have sued the executive committee of the school's board of trustees, accusing the trustees of misconduct and forcing the school's longtime headmaster to announce his impending departure.

In the proposed class action, Jim Walden of Walden Macht & Haran, said headmaster Stuart Johnson was forced to lie to the parents before suddenly announcing plans to leave his job at the elite Upper East Side boys' school.

But Thomas Rafferty of Cravath, Swaine & Moore, which is representing the executive committee, argued that Johnson's departure did not give the families standing to file a lawsuit, and rejected their allegations.

Johnson, in a pair of affidavits notarized March 19 and March 20, said he appreciated the families' kind words but did not support their effort to keep him on as headmaster beyond his current departure date, which is June 2021.

He also insisted that he chose his own lawyer, Wayne Outten of the firm Outten & Golden, and was not influenced in his choice by the board.

In a letter to New York Attorney General Letitia James dated March 18, Walden said that the executive committee members knew the affidavit was false but were pressuring Johnson to submit it anyway.

According to the suit, which was filed Friday in Manhattan Supreme Court, the December letter announcing Johnson's departure was a surprise to many people because the headmaster had recently said he wanted to remain in his role for five to 10 more years. Walden, who is representing the anonymous St. Bernard's students and their parents, argued that Johnson had played a big role in the families' choice of St. Bernard's and their plans to remain there.

Rafferty said Johnson's affidavit ought to be the last word on the row over his departure, and had harsh words for the complaint.

"Whatever Mr. Johnson may have purportedly expressed to members of the St. Bernard's community or others in the past, his current affidavit sworn under penalty of perjury must be taken as his definitive view," Rafferty wrote.

Rafferty also described the complaint as "rife with defamatory inaccuracies and falsehoods."

Along with the allegations about Johnson's removal, Walden alleged in the complaint that some trustees had manipulated St. Bernard's investment portfolio for their personal gain. Others sought to remove Johnson and replace him with a headmaster more willing to help specific trustees' relatives with the high school admissions process, Walden wrote in the complaint.

Walden also alleged in the complaint the executive committee spent enormous amounts of school funds on "damage control," including hiring the public relations firm Rubenstein and high-priced law firms.

Walden said that, to his clients, the sudden nature of the announcement of Johnson's impending departure showed that something unusual was happening.

"Succession planning for a headmaster is probably one of the most important things that a private school can do, and the fact that the executive committee forced him off without any meaningful succession planning at all is really baffling," he said.

Outten did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday.

It was not immediately clear how the state court system's coronavirus-related suspension of filing in nonessential matters, which began Sunday, would affect the case.