UMN pays $500,000 to student who accused football players of rape in 2016

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Surprised one of the stipulations of the settlement wasn’t a non disclosure agreement
 

Good. Let's have it out. Rehash the entire thing. 50 pages, minimum.
 

she believes and has claimed that the University violated her rights relating to events occurring prior to Fall 2016 and as a result, has suffered physical injuries
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But ... what?
 

The ‘victim‘ gets 500k? Lemme guess, she is not a minority.
 



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$500k to make the whole mess go away for good seems like a bargain.
No one including the "victim", the players involved and the U came out of this mess without a wound.
It is best to bury it and move on.
 

The University seems to be bleeding $$ like republicans. Sad!
 




she believes and has claimed that the University violated her rights relating to events occurring prior to Fall 2016 and as a result, has suffered physical injuries
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But ... what?
.
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What is the settlement for? This is unrelated to the alleged gang rape?
 


TurfGopher said:
I think the U got off easy with only 500k.
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For a crime that may or may not havebeen committed in the manner described. Since someone already broached politics on the thread, and hypocrisy is a pet peeve, a major party presidential candidate recently realized innocence must be presumed (after earlier stating an accusation is proof). Have we forgotten?

That said the U figures 500k to make the issue “go away”. Does this incentivize further lawsuits or threats of lawsuits for any manner of personal injuries?

.
 
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Hard to draw any conclusions without all the facts. What are the pre-2016 events that are mentioned? is that events plural, as in more than one event? at the risk of blaming the victim, this woman really sounds like a trouble magnet.

Which raises all kinds of questions. IF she was involved in some previous incident or situation, then that makes her decision to attend the infamous party even more odd.

Like it or not, sometimes companies and institutions settle lawsuits just to make them go away. it gets written off as the cost of doing business. that is why companies and institutions carry liability insurance - although those policies often have limits on the amount that can be paid out.

So, in the end, the U of MN's insurance premium goes up a little bit next year.
 


Pompous Elitist said:
For a crime that may or may not havebeen committed in the matter described. Since someone already broached politics on the thread, and hypocrisy is a pet peeve, as a major party presidential candidate recently realized recently innocence must be presumed. Have we forgotten?

That said the U figures 500k to make the issue “go away”. Does this incentivize further lawsuits or threats of lawsuits for any manner of personal injuries?
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Even if the cases against the players went to court and they were all found innocent, that doesn't mean there isn't a civil case. For a criminal case against a player, the prosecutor would need to prove that the specific player broke a law with a higher standard of evidence. For a civil case against the U, the plaintiff doesn't need to prove which players were involved or that a crime was committed and there is a lower standard of evidence.

The U has settled a bunch of times before. Just within sports, they gave Mike Sherels a million dollars and a former UMD hockey coach $4.5 million within the past two years. There was already more than enough incentive. Just yesterday they won another high profile lawsuit which they didn't settle too, so it's not like they're handing out money to anyone who complains.
 



$500K for the CF the “U” created seems like a bargain to me. Should have come right from Coyle and Kaler tho.
 

I will say the university absolutely steam rolled lots of kids that had no to very minimal involvement in the actions. They could have just gone after 2 or 3 of the people and not the 10 including people at were proven to be no where near the incident. Seems like there was a cops investigating and a EOAA investigation and they were very different. For whatever reason the university choose follow the EOAA’s investigation.
 


GoGophersUMN said:
Even if the cases against the players went to court and they were all found innocent, that doesn't mean there isn't a civil case. For a criminal case against a player, the prosecutor would need to prove that the specific player broke a law with a higher standard of evidence. For a civil case against the U, the plaintiff doesn't need to prove which players were involved or that a crime was committed and there is a lower standard of evidence.

The U has settled a bunch of times before. Just within sports, they gave Mike Sherels a million dollars and a former UMD hockey coach $4.5 million within the past two years. There was already more than enough incentive. Just yesterday they won another high profile lawsuit which they didn't settle too, so it's not like they're handing out money to anyone who complains.
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I agree with all that, but what was this settlement regarding? The story implies it was for an injury pre-dating the night in question, but the tribune story mainly discusses the alleged assault. The firm in question specializes in personal injury litigation regarding college sexual assault. Risk/benefit analysis favors settling rather than going through discovery, time investment of everyone involved, PR considerations?

Sherels had a series of complications, adverse effects during his initial illness and no litigation regarding his treatment was ever filed AFAIK. The settlement appears to have been entirely pre-emptive?

What was the hockey coach settlement regarding?
 

Pompous Elitist said:
I agree with all that, but what was this settlement regarding? The story implies it was for an injury pre-dating the night in question, but the tribune story mainly discusses the alleged assault. The firm in question specializes in personal injury litigation regarding college sexual assault. Risk/benefit analysis favors settling rather than going through discovery, time investment of everyone involved, PR considerations?

Sherels had a series of complications, adverse effects during his initial illness and no litigation regarding his treatment was ever filed AFAIK. The settlement appears to have been entirely pre-emptive?

What was the hockey coach settlement regarding?
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It was a UM Duluth thing. They fired a lesbian Hockey coach who was not winning as much as her career went along, even though she still won a lot.

The woman allegedly was highly abrasive, and had some boundary issues, which may be part of cause for termination. It seems there are a lot of odd things that go on in D1 Women's athletics, at least in some sports, that we do not see on the Men's side or in lower divisions.

Abrasive, entitled people usually wear out there welcome. The coach hired a good lawyer and the jury agreed that the firing was related to her sexual orientation, so she received a settlement. UMD probably screwed it up in the way they fired her.

This UMD coach problem does not have much to do with the 2016 steaming pile of crap at the UMTC.
 
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Winnipegopher said:
couldn't McCrary sue the U as well?
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Nine of the players sued the U for $45 million in federal court. Their case got thrown out by the judge before trial.


Federal Judge Scraps University of Minnesota Football Players’ Sexual Assault Lawsuit

A federal civil rights lawsuit filed by a group of former University of Minnesota football players disciplined for an alleged 2016 sexual assault has been dismissed.

The lawsuit named the U of M Board of Regents, U of M President Eric Kaler and U of M Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Director Tina Marisam as defendants. Those filing the legal action are a group of former Gopher football athletes who were disciplined after it was alleged they repeatedly sexually assaulted a student at an on-campus apartment as others watched and cheered.

While no criminal charges were filed in the matter, the Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action (EOAA) Office opened its own investigation of the incident. The report issued by the EOAA found it was more likely than not that some of the athletes had violated university code and should be disciplined.

After the report was issued U of M Athletics Director Mark Coyle suspended 10 players for the team's upcoming bowl game. It was eventually recommended by the University Office of Student Conduct and Academic Inquiry that five of the students face expulsion, while four would be suspended for a year and one other serve probation.

The athletes did not accept those sanctions, instead requesting a formal hearing before the University’s Student Sexual Misconduct Subcommittee, which reduced the penalties for five of the players. Several of the disciplined athletes said the school discriminated against them, either on account of their gender or race. They maintain that the purported gang rape was, in fact, a consensual encounter.

The civil lawsuit that followed in June of 2018 alleged that defendants faced gender and racial discrimination as African American males, had their equal protection and due process rights violated, and a handful of other violations of their civil rights. The players had initially wanted to recoup unspecified damages for the ‘willful and malicious discrimination of the players after [the] woman alleged she was the victim of a gang rape’ in September 2016.

But the University of Minnesota, in attempting to dismiss the suit, did admit to discrimination—albeit “not on the grounds of gender or race.” “Instead, the process discriminated among the student-athletes, not against them, by carefully determining who had violated the student conduct code and who had not,” the motion to dismiss said.

After reviewing the action, U.S. District Court Justice Donovan Frank disagreed, ruling Monday that the players' lawsuit should be dismissed on all counts. In his ruling, Frank said the Gopher linemen had “no factual support for their allegations of disparate treatment,” even though their complaint alleged that educators “assume” that athletes are likely to partake in sexual misconduct.

Read complete articles at: https://www.legalreader.com/federal...sota-football-players-sexual-assault-lawsuit/ and https://www.kare11.com/article/news/local/federal-lawsuit-filed-by-former-u-of-m-football-players-dismissed/89-e9065eec-a3bb-4e09-be79-26f3cd93bfde
 
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Pompous Elitist said:
I agree with all that, but what was this settlement regarding? The story implies it was for an injury pre-dating the night in question, but the tribune story mainly discusses the alleged assault. The firm in question specializes in personal injury litigation regarding college sexual assault. Risk/benefit analysis favors settling rather than going through discovery, time investment of everyone involved, PR considerations?

Sherels had a series of complications, adverse effects during his initial illness and no litigation regarding his treatment was ever filed AFAIK. The settlement appears to have been entirely pre-emptive?

What was the hockey coach settlement regarding?
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Wild speculation: perhaps the basis of the former student's complaint was that they had brought up issues with players on the team before and the university ignored this or conducted insufficient investigations? IE, the night in question might have been prevented, if the school had taken more decisive action? Spitballing here
 

MplsGopher said:
Didn't a bunch of those players already try to sue the U? Maybe I am misremembering this detail.
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They did, it got thrown out, although the argument was that they were discriminated against basted on race, etc.

I'm not sure that was a good tactic.
 

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