8 former Hawkeyes sue the university and ask for Ferentz firing

[hawkfeever]

Better keep an eye out for a lawsuit from your kids.

That's probably coming in the future.

 

[iowahaha1]

Aurora Hawk - What happens next?? how long will this drag out??

 

[Cresthawk]

Aurora Hawk - What happens next?? how long will this drag out??

Not Aurora but I'll give it a go:
1) Possibly the University will move to dismiss the petition on its face or for service issues; plaintiffs' will respond and judge will rule-very unlikely to go away at this point.

2) The University will formally answer the petition in a court filing. This is where we will probably get to see if the U has retained outside counsel.

3) There will be a scheduling conference to set trial dates and deadlines, maybe a media policy but I doubt a gag.

4) The parties will begin "discovery"...this is where the fun and the ugliness will begin. It won't be pretty but the final outcome may not be horrible. It will be painful.

5) The U will move for Complete/partial summary judgment. Maybe the case goes away at this point.
The plaintiffs' may file an amended petition at this point depending on what they "discovered".

There are other steps and additional steps after this but this should take us through the next 12-18 months...

 

[AuroraHawk]

I'll nitpick a bit . . .

Not Aurora but I'll give it a go:

Under the Iowa Rules of Civil Procedure, a defendant has 20 days after being served with the Petition to file an Appearance and some type of responsive pleading ( answering the specific allegations in the Petition on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis, filing some type of motion attacking the Petition for failing to articulate a legitimate claim for relief or a combination thereof). Where a lawsuit asserts relief under federal statutes (raising a "federal question"), a defendant can file papers in federal court by which they are placing the Plaintiffs on notice that the case is being removed from state court in Polk County to federal court in the US District Court for the Southern District of Iowa. A defendant desiring to remove the case to federal court must file removal paperwork within 30 days of being served with the Petition.

Given that the lawsuit filed by the players includes numerous claims arising under federal statutes, I fully expect that the defendants will want the case removed from state court and placed into federal court.

1) Possibly the University will move to dismiss the petition on its face or for service issues; plaintiffs' will respond and judge will rule-very unlikely to go away at this point.

If there isn't an effort to dismiss a significant portion of the counts, I will be shocked. With the caveat that I'm not a civil rights litigation expert, it seems to me that several of the counts can be attacked on statute of limitations grounds. And, while I don't expect that the whole case will "go away," I would not be surprised if certain counts are dismissed or certain plaintiffs are found to not have a viable cause of action. If, as I suspect, the case is removed to federal court, the first thing that I'll ascertain is which of the Article III judges is assigned the case (Judge Rose, Judge Jarvey or Judge Ebinger). I certainly have my preference among those judges and have some preconceived notions about which of the judges would be best equipped to handle a case of this nature. However, I feel constricted to publicly comment . . . so I'll leave it at that.

2) The University will formally answer the petition in a court filing. This is where we will probably get to see if the U has retained outside counsel.

After the court rules on any Motion to Dismiss, the defendants will have to answer any remaining counts. As an aside, we will know well before this stage the name(s) of counsel appearing for the defendants . . . we will know that at the time of removal (or, if they keep it in state court, when they file their initial responsive pleadings).

3) There will be a scheduling conference to set trial dates and deadlines, maybe a media policy but I doubt a gag.

Yep. The attorneys will hold what is known as a Rule 26 Conference in which a discovery schedule and trial date will be contemplated. It is intended to cover other anticipated "difficulties" which may arise in the case - such as electronically stored information and whether a protective order is needed to prevent disclosure of confidential/proprietary information. One "fun" item of note . . . I read somewhere that Kevonte Martin-Manley may have deleted his Twitter postings after Solomon-Simmons issued his demand letter to the University. That could be a problem. That constitutes the destruction of potentially relevant evidence. All parties, not just defendants, are under an obligation to preserve potentially relevant evidence when litigation is reasonably anticipated. If players are scrubbing their social media to get rid of comments that are "positive" towards any of the defendants, I would not envision any federal judge taking such actions lightly. I'd anticipate the initial trial date being set sometime in the Fall or Winter of 2022. Given the number of plaintiffs and COVID restrictions, I wouldn't be surprised to see a discovery schedule that is longer than the "typical" case.

4) The parties will begin "discovery"...this is where the fun and the ugliness will begin. It won't be pretty but the final outcome may not be horrible. It will be painful.

I would expect some significant discovery battles.

5) The U will move for Complete/partial summary judgment. Maybe the case goes away at this point.

Moving for summary judgment is almost a certainty. Predicting an outcome is folly at this point. As accurately noted above, it could go away.

The plaintiffs' may file an amended petition at this point depending on what they "discovered".

There are other steps and additional steps after this but this should take us through the next 12-18 months...

One strategy that I'd give strong consideration to is for the defendants to make an Offer of Judgment to the three players who were on the team in December 2018 and after. Those are the only players who, IMO, are in good stead with respect to statute of limitations arguments. Given that civil rights litigation allows for a "prevailing" plaintiff to recovery attorney's fees, the defendants may be well advised to make an offer in an amount that they believe will (a) not be accepted by the plaintiff; and (b) would be greater than the amount that a jury would award. If the case goes to trial and the amount recovered is less than the amount offered in an Offer of Judgment, a strong argument can be made that a plaintiff is foreclosed from seeking attorneys' fees after the date of the Offer of Judgment. It could make an interesting leverage point as the case progresses.

 

[Cresthawk]

I'll nitpick a bit . . .

Wouldn't a 677 offer to confess be an admission by the U? I get the attorney fee thing but isn't there some long-term/broader negative impact in that?

 

[David1979]

From reading the complaint, they are going to have a lot of issues but may have some avenues to succeed against the University but it will be much more difficult against individual defendants.
The original former athletes who were going to sue, which includes, Wadley, are going to have the most difficult time. They aren't named as plaintiff's in most of the counts because of the statute of limitations issues. That is why they sought out Mends, Simon and Foy who are the most recent players. Foy is going to have a difficult time in any of the contract based claims based on scholarship offers because he was a walk-on.
I think the strongest case they Plaintiffs' have is probably Count I and Count III.
The rest of the counts seem pretty weak to me. Also going to be difficult to file with Iowa Civil Rights Commission because I don't know if any of their claims fall within the SOL.

 

[iowahaha1]

thank you for the updates and processes.

 

[AuroraHawk]

Wouldn't a 677 offer to confess be an admission by the U? I get the attorney fee thing but isn't there some long-term/broader negative impact in that?

I’m thinking FRCP 68 and, if early enough and structured correctly, there is no way that it would be accepted. And, if the amount is what I’d envision, even an acceptance would not be particularly damaging. Would be but a minimal fraction of what was demanded.

 

[hawkfeever]

I’m thinking FRCP 68 and, if early enough and structured correctly, there is no way that it would be accepted. And, if the amount is what I’d envision, even an acceptance would not be particularly damaging. Would be but a minimal fraction of what was demanded.

Can we pay them out in 2 Star gear and maybe some autographed footballs?

 

[aflachawk]

Wadley and Martin-Manley are the most notable.

Not too impressed with KMM. Had a great freshman year but pissed his career down his leg. Now blaming KF

 

[Hawk-A-Doodle-Doo]

Per the concern about willful and reckless destruction of prospectively relevant evidence, the good news for the defense is that IF the plaintiffs are doing this, what we know about the universe of social media is that stuff exists. The second it was posted, it became a permanent part of the social media record.

No matter how hard they try to scrub their social presence, someone(s), somewhere(s) will be able to produce literally every single digital utterance they have ever put forth.

IF they are doing this, it's actually laughably naive. Maybe they should hire Aaron Calvin as a consultant on this stuff.