Another look at lawsuits and silly comments...

Just thought I'd check the few examples I can find of a head coach firing that led to a lawsuit...
BUT as you will quickly see -- none - NOT ONE - of the few cases I can find center on the failure to pay the fired coach...

--Ohio State head football coach Jim O'Brien sues Ohio State -- wrongful termination...he ended up getting everything he was owed, much to the dismay of OSU.
http://ohiostate.scout.com/2/317631.html

--Washington head football coach Rick Neuheisel sues Washington for wrongful termination ..and Neuheisel won a $3 million settlement much to the dismay of Univ. of Washington.
http://www.seattlepi.com/sports/article/Neuheisel-s-lawsuit-vs-UW-NCAA-approaches-1164690.php

--Binghamton fired head coach Kevin Broadus but he sues and ends up with a $1.2 million settlement -- roughly 6 times what his remaining contract would have paid him, much to the dismay of Binghamton and the New York taxpayers who had to pony up the $$.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Broadus

--Arkansas fired head coach Nolan Richardson for inflammatory things Nolan said including...
"if they go ahead and pay me my money, they can take my job tomorrow"
BUT -- Arkansas PAID the full remaining amount on Richardson's lucrative contract the highest in the entire SEC - and he STILL sued them for various things including racial discrimination...
After having to spend millions of the Arkansas taxpayers' money -- the suit finally was dropped...but not until severe negative publicity damaged Arkansas' reputation and severely hurt their ability to recruit as Nolan was well liked and other African-American kids perhaps believed his views that there was racial bigotry and discrimination at U of A. It really hurt Arkansas BIG TIME.
Interestingly -- after Nolan won a National Championship there and led them to the SWEET SIXTEEN six times and Final Four THREE times while he was there -- the Razorbacks have not been back to the Sweet 16 since Richardson's dismissal.

--Billy Gillispie was fired at Kentucky even though his formal contract had never been fully completed -- nonetheless, Kentucky was still on the hook for paying Billy and ended up paying Billy $3 million that they didn't want to pay the guy!
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=4210508
http://www.kentucky.com/2009/10/13/976088/uk-settles-with-gillispie-for.html

--Even once when a coach was fired for using the "N-word" at his players, he sued and won..with NINE of his players joined Dambrot in suing the school!
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1993-04-16/sports/9304160170_1_central-michigan-basketball-coach-keith-dambrot-leonard-drake
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-6th-circuit/1316590.html

--A handful of other fired coaches also sued the schools -- all of them either won or got a tidy settlement!!
http://uwire.com/2011/01/12/usf-leavitt-reach-settlement/
http://www.topusnewstoday.com/kansas-state-university-reaches-settlement-with-former-football-coach-ron-prince.html
http://newsandsentinel.com/page/content.detail/id/549220/Stewart-settlement-totals--1-65-million.html?nav=5063
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/feb/01/sdsu-coach-receive-27-million-settlement/

http://books.google.com/books?id=EbQDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA46&lpg=PA46&dq=%22otis+washington%22+and+%22southern%22&source=bl&ots=d0VBta_ZT1&sig=L5CEb_w030sp5vd3C3HGB-07GSM&hl=en&ei=1hIfTv6QCdCr0AGj9azMAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBsQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22otis%20washington%22%20and%20%22southern%22&f=false

--there's a few more that involve women coaches suing for gender bias, gender discrimination, and a couple involving coaches claiming who were fired when they committed violations - LINK - but these aren't even relevant to our discussion except to say that even those lawsuits generally end up BAD for the University.

So in the end - I think it can easily be said that whenever a coach feel he or she has reason to sue the university -- it invariably is when the coach is right and he ends up winning big time and the school ends up paying up and looking bad in the media.
The schools generally all end up losers.......





I won't bother with all the stupid things I have read lately in regards to the BU coaching issue...but here are just a tiny handful of maybe the most ignorant things I have seen -- that really just make you laugh!!!


--The first and foremost of any statements is along this line..
"I know that..."
....none of us knows the full story so we can have an opinion but we should remain open minded that maybe the truth is somewhere in between...and none of this is at all good for either party.


--"I'm a lawyer and I just don't see why anyone should ever be worried about a lawsuit."
...sure -- I guess if you are a lawyer - then you'd probably like to see everyone suing everyone else -- makes sense if you are greedy and want as much business as possible. But lawsuits destroy untold number of people's lives and businesses every single year and every person and small business fears getting sued - especially getting sued by a BIG corporation that has endless resources and big time teams of lawyers.

NOTE *** that currently NO lawsuit exists between BU and Coach Les -- so we're not there yet.

Individuals and small businesses greatly fear getting sued - as it can literally spell disaster even if you win or the case is thrown out...
In fact it is widely known in many industries that the entire plan or method of doing business is centered defensively on avoiding anything that might result in lawsuits -- often resulting in higher costs and lesser benefits or care for clients or customers just because of the fear of lawsuits.
In the medical industry alone -- the oft cited HIGH cost of medical care is LARGELY due - as much as 34% - to unnecessary tests and action done purely for defensive purposes.
Anyone who owns or runs a small business knows that all it takes is one guy who slips on a wet floor or one well-funded BIG organization or corporation filing a lawsuit -- then you are forced to hire lawyers, spend inordinate time doing research, meeting with attorneys, giving depositions, etc...you can easily be destroyed in the process.


--"It is Jim Les' duty to mitigate any financial damages or payments that BU has to make according to the contract."
...ha -- I think not -- if payments are due via contract requirements, then it's not JL's job to help out the school by doing whatever he has to and reduce those payments.


--"JL was the one who sent the letter (email) to the press"
...no evidence of such and I have reason to believe it was otherwise.


--"Lawsuits like this are common"
...nope -- not common by any stretch -- indeed they are more than rare -- they are previously non-existent...
I dare you to find another example even though 50-60 D-I coaches get fired every year and if you add in all the D-II, D-III, juco, and other coaches who work under multi-year contracts, then we're probably talking 400-500 different examples yearly of such a coach getting fired, and I cannot find another case anywhere close to this one. some law suits involve contesting being fired - esp. if fired without cause..but again, that's not what this possible suit would be about.


--this is a case of..."a jilted partner tries to publicly blackmail their former partner with the threat of bad press/public opinion"
...again - nope -- everything JL has done has been confidential and private -- when the truth is finally known we will see it was NOT JL that caused this to go public.


--"nobody ever sends confidential things by e mail, sealed letters are so much more secure..."
..yeah...right ...just like the sealed package that fell open going from Kentucky to recruit Chris Mills and dumped gobs of cash on the floor...
and like the sealed cash in the envelop that Tim Floyd got fired over...
....sorry but this statement is so wrong on so many different fronts.
I work in a profession where security of information, confidentiality, and privacy are INCREDIBLY serious issues and one can not only lose their job if faulted but NUMEROUS major federal laws constantly apply over the way info is transmitted...
and yet sending the info in sealed letters has been TOTALLY phased out in favor of sending the info electronically by e mail, fax, and by simply placing it on a computer screen on a supposedly secure site.
(Where if a violation occurs - it also can be tracked electronically.)
In fact - confidential discussion between lawyers, politicians, and others sending extremely secure info almost always goes electronically and not by snail mail any more.
Letter-mail is no more secure than any other means -- hey, I get letters in my mailbox all the time that were either addressed to someone else or meant for someone else...and where I work I constantly get letters, documents, and private info in my mailbox that is meant for someone else but delivered to MY mailbox because of similarity of names or by just plain error.
So anyone who says it was inept to send anything by e mail must not know facts or be living in the 1970's.

In the end we see that Jim Les has yet to make even a single public statement since his June 6 firing...while the other party has made numerous public statements, and is now making MORE public releases and even a letter to the editor...so who is the one taking this public?? Gimme a break......


--"Why would Jim Les ever accept a salary of $125K, this must be phony"
..the answer as proven time and time again is because that's just what UCD offers, and it's also exactly what the previous coach was getting -- enuf said..


--"this is like a tenant leaving before the landlord breaks the lease"
..no, in fact it is the exact opposite...in the JL case the pay is GOING TO the guy who left before the end of the contract term...
In the silly tenant case, the money was going FROM the guy who left to one who drew UP the contract.....easy thing for me to see the difference.


--"JL's contract was way different from the way anyone else's contract would be..."
..nope it's virtually identical to the way the previous UC-Davis coach's contract was -- slam dunk.


--"This is greedy of JL"
...then what would it have been if JL didn't take a job for 3 years and just sat by collecting his pay for doing nothing?
By going to work for UC-D under any circumstance -- he lessens the financial burden of BU and it doing a tremendous favor for them. This is so easy to see that a caveman can do it!

--"JL is trying to stick it to BU"
...no -- it is quite clear he is trying NOT to... and is also trying NOT to get stuck...
he has NOT filed a lawsuit contrary to what apparently most uninformed people think -- he's just trying carefully and privately to get his due without a lawsuit...
BU is also trying to do the same and resolve this issue confidentially as it is in nobody's interest that this stuff be in the headlines.