Mar 19, 2020 2 min read

A North Strabane Township couple filed a federal lawsuit against two men who allegedly called the husband a “cancer” afflicting the Florida RV park where the couple lives for some of the year.

The events at issue occurred at RiverBend Motorcoach Resort, which is located in Hendry County, Fla., but Andrew and Polly Maletta’s case was filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for Western District of Pennsylvania.

The Malettas claim David Woodle, of Texas, and Frederick Langdon, whose address in court papers matches the resort’s, damaged their standing in the community by allegedly writing false allegations about Andrew Maletta in a document they entitled a “Cancer on our Resort” and posted to a Facebook group the defendants purportedly manage.

Similarly to the Malettas, Woodle and Langdon are owners or tenants at the 315-lot RiverBend park, which includes a marina, pool, clubhouse and workout facilities.The Malettas own a lot and have been living there part of the time since 2014, court papers say.

The letter was posted to a closed Facebook group for RiverBend members last winter, but allegedly it was shared with people outside it. The letter made allegedly false statements about Andrew Maletta’s behavior toward others in the community with whom he appeared to have disputes or rivalries. The allegations include a dispute with another person who, like Maletta, has been active in RiverBends’ condo owners’ association, and disputes over money the association’s board reportedly spent on arbitration with that person.

“The false and defamatory statements contained in the Cancer on our Resort document harmed the otherwise good reputation of Plaintiffs by lowering them in the estimation of the members of the resort community and their friends and acquaintances in Western Pennsylvania and deterred third persons from associating or dealing with them,” Fiffik wrote.

The case is assigned to Senior U.S. District Judge David S. Cercone. No attorneys are listed for the defendants.