Posts tagged as “Brandon Austin lawsuit”

Who knows how many millions of dollars and how much damage to UO’s “brand” Dana Altman and his enablers have cost us so far, and how much is still to come. But for now, Dylan Darling has the good news in the RG here: … U.S. District Judge Michael McShane in…

10/30/2016 update:  Long story after the break, which I suppose is a good thing for those that bill by the hour.

The latest is that the judge has given UO’s hired lawyers an extension from 10/28 until 12/2 to respond to the players lawyers’ response to the judge’s response to the UO lawyers’ request for dismissal, as well as an extension to respond to the players lawyers’ 3rd complaint, which of course was amended in response to the UO lawyers’ response to the players lawyer’s 2nd complaint. In case that’s not perfectly clear, here’s a free link to the docket, from the freelaw.org hack of the federal court’s paywalled database. Oh, wait, there are two dockets – maybe the links you want are here.

10/11/2016: Dana Altman’s players refile discrimination complaint against Gottfredson, UO

9/8/2016: Federal Judge McShane has ruled in favor of UO. The Emerald has the story here. Duck advocate Tobin Klinger has the party line in Around the O, the official organ of the Ducks:

“The court’s decision dismissed all of the students’ claims and upholds the University’s position that the students were afforded appropriate due process under the UO’s student conduct code. In addition, it affirms that the student conduct processes are separate and independent of criminal matters.

But Klinger fails to report that Judge McShane left the door open to refiling. And, according to the more accurate report by the Oregonian’s Tyson Alger here, it seems that the young men’s legal counsel, well-known celebrity attorney Alex Spiro, plans to try phoning it in one more time:

Court documents show that many of the claims of the players against the university were dismissed without prejudice, meaning they’ll be allowed to refile within the next 30 days. U.S. District Judge Michael McShane did dismiss the players’ claim of not receiving due process with prejudice, meaning that it can’t be refiled.

“We are simply redrafting the pleadings and moving forward with the case pursuant to the court’s decision,” said Alex Spiro, the lawyer for Dotson and Artis.

Judge McShane’s full opinion is here. I believe this is the last of the lawsuits related to the alleged rapes on the night of March 8, 2014, if it ever ends. UO paid Jane Doe $800K, Morlok and Stokes $425K, $2.5K for Shelly Kerr’s ethics fine, and unknown amounts for lawyers, including defending UO attorneys Doug Park and Sam Hill from an Bar ethics complaint. And, of course, UO’s “brand” took a huge hit.

As it happens, just an hour before this opinion was released Duck AD Rob Mullens was talking to the UO Board of Trustees. They had no questions for him about any of this, including why the academic budget had to pay for it.

The gist of Judge McShane’s decision:

I’m no law professor, but it seems pretty clear-cut. UO’s Deputy Counsel Doug Park offered the student-athletes a deal that would allow them to go play basketball somewhere else, and they took it after getting advice from their own lawyers:

Then they had second thoughts. Judge McShane essentially said “too bad, a deal’s a deal”.

8/27/2016: Celebrity lawyer Alex Spiro calls Dana Altman’s black basketball players “boys”

The full docket is here, courtesy of Carl Malamud’s RecapTheLaw. The RG’s Alisha Roemeling has a report here. The intro: The University of Oregon went to federal court Tuesday to argue that lawsuits filed by three former UO basketball players against the university should be thrown out. After a three-hour hearing, U.S. District…