In other "fired coaches trying to get/retain a lot of money from their former employers" news, Fitz filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against NW for $130M
That's a lot of cheddar. This is another one to watch.
Fitzgerald alleges Northwestern unlawfully fired him for cause July 10, three days after announcing a two-week suspension as part of corrective measures from a university-commissioned hazing investigation into the program. Northwestern's investigation, led by attorney Maggie Hickey, found that while claims of hazing from a former player were largely corroborated, there was not sufficient evidence Fitzgerald and other coaches and staff had knowledge of the incidents.
Attorney Dan Webb, who filed the lawsuit, said Northwestern fired Fitzgerald based on "no new facts, no new developments whatsoever, zero."
Response from players via their attorneys:
A group of attorneys representing players who have filed lawsuits against Northwestern issued a statement in response to Fitzgerald's lawsuit.
"The filing of the lawsuit by former coach Patrick Fitzgerald is clearly all about financial gain for him and is incredibly tone deaf in defending his actions. His complaint ironically details claims that he was deeply involved in each player's life, mental health, academic career, athletic performance and potential after graduation ... all of which actually supports what we've been saying all along, that given the head coach's proximity he knew or should have known what was happening in his program. This is the legal standard: knew or should have known about the abuse, and we feel strongly that the civil lawsuits brought by his former players have merit. Together we represent numerous former players who have provided detailed allegations of abuse. We are united in our goal to get them the justice they deeply deserve," read the statement from the attorneys from Levin & Perconti, Ben Crump Law, Romanucci & Blandin and Hart McLaughlin & Eldridge.
October 5th, 2023 at 3:28 PM ^
fitz-jumping-on-sideline.gif
October 5th, 2023 at 3:34 PM ^
I’m waiting for some enterprising insurance company to launch “former football coach sues the school for wrongful termination” insurance.
October 5th, 2023 at 3:56 PM ^
With coaches out there like Tucker and Meyer they probably shouldn't call themselves the "Good Hands People"...
October 5th, 2023 at 7:30 PM ^
I think it falls under D&O (Directors & Officers) Insurance. I don't have a CPCU designation so I could be wrong.
October 5th, 2023 at 3:37 PM ^
That won’t help the $80,000 plus tuition…not at all.
October 5th, 2023 at 3:37 PM ^
Should start a gofundme for all these financially struggling former coaches.
October 5th, 2023 at 3:59 PM ^
It's the PRINCIPLE of the thing, you see...
/s
October 5th, 2023 at 4:09 PM ^
"...attorneys from Levin & Perconti, Ben Crump Law, Romanucci & Blandin and Hart McLaughlin & Eldridge."
It's also about huge contingency fees for the lawyers.
October 5th, 2023 at 4:40 PM ^
Love the attorney's response that Fitz is "clearly all about financial gain" -- meanwhile, let's just ignore our attorney's motives for financial gain....
October 6th, 2023 at 12:55 PM ^
yea, it's the lawyers' fault
October 6th, 2023 at 10:38 AM ^
Immediately firing someone, without a full investigation, has become a knee jerk reaction when sensational allegations hit the social media world. Ask Trevor Bauer about it. I’m all for these lawsuits. Let the truth prevail and make people think twice about rushing to destroy someone’s life.
October 5th, 2023 at 3:39 PM ^
Grab your popcorn - a couple of former B1G coaches and the saga of their firing (for cause) will be in the news for a while.
October 5th, 2023 at 3:45 PM ^
Northwestern alums are trying to bleed that school to death. Athletes suing for the culture. Coaches suing saying the culture was not their responsibility..
Good God what's next?!
Their mascot's heads are falling off!!
Their new stadium is going to be the second toilet bowl in the Big Ten. I can't poop everywhere!!!
October 5th, 2023 at 7:48 PM ^
Can we file a lawsuit against the attorneys filing a lawsuit for financial gain?
October 6th, 2023 at 12:56 PM ^
again, it's the lawyers fault?
October 5th, 2023 at 9:42 PM ^
I think Dan Webb was Loyola so more spiteful of NU than alum. (Though iirc, he’s worked w NU people at times).
October 6th, 2023 at 11:09 AM ^
Are you saying wrt money? NU and Michigan as well, have a lot of money, and for NU, they could get rid of the football program if it became a drag on the university. Their identity is not tied to athletics from talking about it with some alums I know.
October 5th, 2023 at 3:56 PM ^
Fitz probably has a better legal case to get compensated than Tucker does, but both will probably be settled just to make it "go away".
October 5th, 2023 at 4:14 PM ^
Both absolutely will settle. Neither school wants discovery and campus leadership on witness stands.
Both men will be paid handsomely to, go away and STFU.
October 5th, 2023 at 5:00 PM ^
Difference being that MSU is a public school and so we'll get to see if it's 10 or 20 million bucks
October 5th, 2023 at 8:19 PM ^
Oh absolutely, both of these schools are going to pay to make this go away. With NW they have the added benefit of not having to disclose the settlement because they're private.
And what's going to suck is that both Fitz and Tucker will likely still get paid in the future to coach football to some degree while the student-athletes will be the ones who had to suffer under Fitz's hazing.
October 5th, 2023 at 9:24 PM ^
Except Fitz and NU have a class action lawsuit stating them down
Tucker and MSU don’t
October 6th, 2023 at 7:02 AM ^
I think they could both just get their legal fees plus zero. They have no case.
October 6th, 2023 at 10:14 AM ^
Well NU themselves has repeatedly said there is no direct evidence showing Fitz knew of the abuse. NU had to fire him regardless, but Fitz is gonna get paid.
October 5th, 2023 at 4:16 PM ^
Nice. Twice what the contract was.
I'm sure he didn't have trouble finding a law firm. "We get a 40% contingency Pat, I'm sure you understand what that means, sign here".
October 5th, 2023 at 7:03 PM ^
More likely a retainer fee. Fitz would be dumb to sign a contingency agreement given the sheer size of the lawsuit and the strength of the case. It's not like he can't float the bill until that big settlement.
October 5th, 2023 at 10:26 PM ^
His attorney, Dan Webb, doesn’t do contingency fees. Fitz is paying him about $1500 an hour.
October 5th, 2023 at 4:19 PM ^
Pat's case looks solid enough that NU would be smart to give him about half of what he asks to make him go away.
October 5th, 2023 at 4:21 PM ^
It's hard not to agree with the players here, Fitzgerald 100% seems like he would absolutely go out of line to benefit himself
October 5th, 2023 at 4:31 PM ^
So what is with lawyers and describing civil contract disputes as unlawful (Fitz) and illegal (Tucker)?
Contract violations are not illegal, nor unlawful.
October 5th, 2023 at 5:01 PM ^
Plaintiff's side not exactly known for reserved language, typically
October 5th, 2023 at 8:17 PM ^
Yeah, let it never be said that "zealous advocacy for your client" requires you to actually make coherent sense when grandstanding.
October 5th, 2023 at 9:44 PM ^
Breach of contract, esp if a tort allegation is tacked on, can be “illegal” or “unlawful,” just not criminal.
October 6th, 2023 at 8:41 AM ^
Contract violations are not illegal, nor unlawful.
Not inherently, but they absolutely can be. That said, I don’t believe either Fitzgerald or Tucker are claiming breach of contract. Both suits are claiming that the respective university violated employment law provisions.
October 5th, 2023 at 4:35 PM ^
but, you know, cheeseburgers
October 5th, 2023 at 4:50 PM ^
Dan Webb is probably the biggest name for litigation in Chicago. Fitz went top shelf on this. Webb probably charges $2000-2500/hr. (I dont know that for a fact but top litigators of his fame can charge that.) Plus his firm will have a bunch of other lawyers and paralegals. Webb largely is just lending his name, the case will be worked by other lawyers. Add it all up, Fitz is probably looking at paying $200k-$400K per month for a case like that and at that firm.
But for $130M payday? Good investment.
October 5th, 2023 at 6:36 PM ^
The guy gets a cut and more celeb to his name. Lawyers want Fitz's case for the publicity as well.
So I imagine the lawyer gets a cut of the settlement in the end unless Fitz felt paying him up front was easier and more profitable to him in the end.
October 6th, 2023 at 6:26 AM ^
Firms like that rarely do “contingent fees”—thata for med mal / ambulence chasers. Lawyers take cuts when the clients cant afford their services. No way Webb is doing a contingent fee here. Will be strictly hourly, his firm gets paif win or lose.
October 5th, 2023 at 9:21 PM ^
The class action lawsuit against NU and Fitz will be epic
October 5th, 2023 at 11:19 PM ^
If Fitz wins the legal team is going to celebrate by everyone going “running” 😜
October 6th, 2023 at 7:08 AM ^
The part I hate about these is they’re effectively extortion.
You done wrong, and you know you done wrong (or deluded yourself into thinking you didn’t) and by saying “I’m going to show the world everything you’ve ever said about anything” you get paid a huge sum of money. Theres always something embarrassing because there’s tons of people and surely somebody has a poor opinion of you (which doesn’t mean they acted out of malice, but that doesn’t matter) or said something inappropriate or whatever else. No program is perfect and no one wants to have their entire program opened up to microscopic scrutiny. It’s just ridiculous.
October 6th, 2023 at 3:16 PM ^
Interesting choice of word with extortion. I think Tucker’s legal team is going to hammer tracy’s extortion text message and use that to fight the wrongful termination.
Her own texts indicated that her lawyers were concerned that she was teetering on extortion.
IANAL, but it seems like her legal team is going to make the argument that he did not bring ridicule to the university. She did by extortion.
She shopped the case to ESPN and USA Today and the green lighted the story which set off the ridicule. Her rationale for green lighting the story was based on murmurs of a leak. She was the leak.
Karen - a lawyer is reaching out to the head lawyer at MSU to discuss what this might look like moving forward. She’s going to gauge their response and we will go from there but sounds like we will be asking Tucker to not speak on me or
the incident and him or MSU will need to make an anonymous donation to STE so that we can further our work.
Karen said once she can test their tolerance - like do they just want this to just go away - then she’ll be able to better help me make decisions.
Having him just sign an NDA tho just means he did it no one will know and there are no consequences for him.
Money is my only recourse to make him feel like there is a punishment and I can request it be anonymous so that he can’t take credit for it
Not even sure he would agree to it but I think I should try and if it leaked then it’s a donation to my work and not me
They said it would be a bad idea to call him. Could look like I tried to extort him and then followed it up with a lawyer
October 6th, 2023 at 7:43 AM ^
I'm reminded of a (paraphrased) random quote from the first season of Suits...
Investment bank executive: "Harvey, I had no idea this was going on..."
Harvey: "Maybe not, but it's your job to know."
October 6th, 2023 at 8:51 AM ^
More litigating in the media...