Crain's Detroit Business - review of MSU civil liability
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20180128/news/651331/long-complex-road-ahead-for-msu
Found this article from Sunday's Crain's Detroit Business.
There has been extensive conversation in other posts about the civil lawsuits. The article discusses what MSU may or may not try to do in order to reduce the financial penalty of Dr. Evil Nassar becoming the worst sexual predator in American history while acting as their employee.
As an aside:
This bullshit evil is really personal for me - my sister was an elite gymnast. She was ranked #20 in the country in the late 90s and was competing for a spot on the national team (she did not make it as they have fewer than 10). As such she hung around with all the olympic competitors from the late 90s. She was a college athelete afterwards (not at MSU). Abuse of this kind is an epidemic in gymnastics. My sister knows MANY people who are victims.
At the elite level, eveybody gets to know everybody after a year or two it seems. There is a bit of a alumnae club too. I know these women and I rage against what happened to them; I rage against the administration that simply didn't give a shit about the girls and women they were entrusted to protect (both MSU and USAG/USOC).
If judgment was left to me it would be simple: nuke it from space - it's the only way to be sure.
January 29th, 2018 at 11:07 AM ^
When the lawsuits start piling up, it will be clear to the powers that be at MSU that Izzo and Dantoni have to go.
January 29th, 2018 at 11:12 AM ^
It may not get that far. Right or wrong. public sentiment is often a much stronger catalyst. A few more pieces of info come out to keep this story at the forefront of national news for another week and that would probably be the end immediately.
January 29th, 2018 at 11:41 AM ^
Public sentiment is a much stronger catalyst then money? Not so fast my friend.
January 29th, 2018 at 11:46 AM ^
Not so fast, indeed. When public sentiment is monitized it can move mountains. Otherwise it is hit and miss and often loses out to money.
January 29th, 2018 at 11:47 AM ^
Nothing drives public sentiment like the prospect of taxpayer money having to be spent cleaning up a mess like this.
It could happen sooner, but I'm guessing we are still a good 90 days out or so.
January 29th, 2018 at 2:03 PM ^
I agree with TruBlu, and I'll go a step further. I will be stunned if the MSU administration are obstinate, arrogant and ignorant enough to keep Izzo and Dantonio for another week.
January 29th, 2018 at 2:21 PM ^
I agree they will both ultimately go, but right now there is nobody there with the authority or moral courage to fire them.
January 29th, 2018 at 12:16 PM ^
Not unless they are somehow shown to be culpable in the civil and/or criminal liabilities that MSU faces. With the exception of the ESPN OTL story, most of the civil liabilities have related to Nassar and gynamistics. I haven't seen anything yet that suggests cases are, or will be, filed against the other coaches or programs.
January 29th, 2018 at 4:03 PM ^
Umm...I'm willing to bet a lot of money that there will be suits-- plural-- brought against MSU for its mishandling of rape allegations by members of the football and basketball team, and I'd bet money that Izzo and/or Dantonio will be named as individual defendants (depending on the victim). And, to the extent there's any sort of statute of limitations argument by MSU, I think the plaintiffs will have a very good argument that MSU's active and fraudulent concealment of its internal analysis, reporting, and investigation into these alleged sexual assaults has thus tolled any relevant statute of limitations. I also think a class action may be coming, or a slew of consolidated lawsuits, which tie MSU's intitutional malfeasance together across the entire administration-- i.e., a Title IX suit brought on behalf of all victims of Nassar and all victims of the football and basketball players--which would necessarily involve Izzo and Dantonio (and Hollis, and Simon, and Klages, and the MSU Title IX office, etc.)
Point being, I wouldn't hang my hat on that "no lawsuits due to bball or football" hook just yet, since I'd be shocked if those suits aren't forthcoming. Mork and Tom aren't anywhere close to being out of the woods on this.
January 29th, 2018 at 10:46 PM ^
January 29th, 2018 at 11:12 AM ^
Wow. That's definitely worth a "holy shit".
January 29th, 2018 at 11:14 AM ^
January 29th, 2018 at 11:45 AM ^
As a public, state funded university, doesn't this mean that said staggering financial costs are (to a certain extent) going to fall on us, the taxpayers?
Thanks again, MSU.
January 29th, 2018 at 12:04 PM ^
Indeed it does. Money is fungible and in the end there's really no such thing as this pot or that pot.
January 29th, 2018 at 12:08 PM ^
the State of MI gives the university a certain amount of money from the state budget for operations and performance - in FY 2018 looks like MSU got about $278M
https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2017/02/07/gov-rick-sny…
My understanding is that the State would not be on the hook to pick up the additional liability from the lawsuits but I may be mistaken.
MSU may try to argue that they have governmental immunity which seems dubious in this case.
This article from DFP has a longer discussion of the issue - MSU has insurance to cover some of this
https://www.freep.com/story/money/business/john-gallagher/2018/01/26/la…
January 29th, 2018 at 12:11 PM ^
January 29th, 2018 at 12:32 PM ^
they could also tap the endowment as well, no?
January 29th, 2018 at 4:24 PM ^
I don't know the details but in general I would assume the answer is no. Generally I believe the endowment is pretty secure from being used to bail out the university for problems like this. The endowment is likely mostly restricted to certain departments, programs, etc. which prevent distribution for this use.
Now, it is possible that they might decide to increase the annual distributions a point or so because they need to make up the cash outlay of the whole situation, but it's not like they can go to the Endowment ATM and withdraw $100M to pay for this.
January 29th, 2018 at 1:45 PM ^
First thing I'd like to RIP is Klages, Simon and Hollis' retirement plans..
January 29th, 2018 at 11:14 AM ^
The Nassar scandal involves upwards of 200 girls and could be far costlier than Penn State's settlements. Assuming the same settlement value per case as Penn State, MSU's liability could be greater than $500 million.
January 29th, 2018 at 11:16 AM ^
Ha! Great minds, as they say...
January 29th, 2018 at 11:21 AM ^
January 29th, 2018 at 11:47 AM ^
I would think that depends on a few things:
a) how early were the first (ignored) complaints to USAG made (in comparison to the '97 allegations ignored by Klages/others at MSU)
b) how many victims did he get access to thru MSU vs. USAG
January 29th, 2018 at 2:14 PM ^
Seems like that could be a factor too.
January 29th, 2018 at 11:44 AM ^
And as a public institution Im willingto bet the bulk of this bill will be footed by the Michigan taxpayer.
January 29th, 2018 at 12:09 PM ^
above for some discussion & links.
January 29th, 2018 at 11:17 AM ^
The Nassar scandal involves upwards of 200 girls and could be far costlier than Penn State's settlements. Assuming the same settlement value per case as Penn State, MSU's liability could be greater than $500 million.
Good.
EDIT: Beaten to the punch. regardless, that's a ton of dough.
January 29th, 2018 at 11:16 AM ^
Not to the extent that I know any survivors, but my elementary school was shown on 20/20 Friday night. Nassar taught catechism there.
January 29th, 2018 at 11:28 AM ^
The odd twists in this story are amazing. I can easily imagine Nasser as a church going family man-type in his home life while being a monster in his professional life. Doesn't in any way mitigate the evil he personifies. It's just that human beings are so capable of creating masks to hide behind.
January 29th, 2018 at 11:30 AM ^
At an elementary school. Also ran for school board.
Both of which are horrifying.
January 29th, 2018 at 11:35 AM ^
Sadly, yes.
The Diocese of Lansing confirmed Nassar was involved with the church and completed “Safe Environment training” before becoming a catechist. Safe Environment training is intended to train parishioners who work with children how to recognize and prevent child abuse.
http://statenews.com/article/2017/03/local-church-avoids-addressing-nas…
January 29th, 2018 at 12:31 PM ^
That is beyond fucked up
January 29th, 2018 at 11:27 AM ^
January 29th, 2018 at 11:31 AM ^
In a related story, Trustee Mosallam demanded the resignation of MSU's general counsel today.
January 29th, 2018 at 11:46 AM ^
Good. That is the part I can't believe through all of this. In the story about the two different conclusion statements provided regarding the campus investigation into Nassar, it specifically states MSU's general counsel had been informed.
This is the most institutionalized case of neglect and ignorance I have ever seen. At minimum the President, general counsel, AD, coach, and a faculty advisor had all been informed at some point that women/girls had accused Nassar of abuse and yet not a single person or group took action to prevent it.
January 29th, 2018 at 2:28 PM ^
Glad he’s finally doing the right thing. On a side note: I was a party to a conversation with Mosallam in the Summer 2016 and he was absolutely convinced of Nassar’s innocents, claiming “they have it all wrong” “it’s a medical procedure”. My friend who was the 3rd in the convo & a spartan Dad, has been diligently defending the University and to a point Nassar, right up till these girls spoke...Now I haven’t heard from him in 2 weeks..
January 29th, 2018 at 2:00 PM ^
Looks like the MSU trustees are starting to find religion now that the writing's on the wall.
January 29th, 2018 at 11:40 AM ^
MSU will certainly file a cascade of motions claiming government immunity. They may or may not succeed. But there may also be a problem for them lurking in the contracts of people like Lou Anna Simon - namely, it's not uncommon for contracts like that to stipulate that the university will pay legal settlements (and very commonly, of course, legal defense fees) for an individual working in his or her capacity as a university official. It wouldn't surprise me if even Nassar has such a thing in his contract.
Thus, they may very well win 100% of their government immunity claims and still be on the hook if some judge says "fine. Mrs. Simon, you owe every one of these defendants $2 million dollars apiece."
January 29th, 2018 at 12:12 PM ^
January 29th, 2018 at 12:43 PM ^
Won't stop them from trying, though.
January 29th, 2018 at 2:48 PM ^
stop them from succeeding.
January 29th, 2018 at 11:45 AM ^
Sounds about right.
January 29th, 2018 at 12:06 PM ^
I'll bet that by the time it's all been said and done, the legal liability will be closer to $750M. That is, unless MSU takes the low road (not even a little beyond the realm of possibility, given this lot).
The long-term damage to MSU in either case will take generations to fix.
January 29th, 2018 at 1:15 PM ^
January 29th, 2018 at 11:48 AM ^
January 29th, 2018 at 12:08 PM ^
I can't imagine Nike dropping them at all, sad as that sounds. Nike is still sponsoring PSU, nothing that happened there affected that relationship. If this was sarcasm and I missed it, the joke is on me. I just don't see how you can put a price on the number of victims with regard to your sponsorship. Guess we will see if that is what Nike decides to do. Because they would essentially be saying, abusing 30 boys is different than abusing 200 girls. While the numbers are dramatically different, the crime is still the same and if they didn't drop PSU, I don't see how they could MSU. Nike still sponsors Baylor too, FWIW.
January 29th, 2018 at 1:57 PM ^
this is a very different situation and TIME. PSU may have involved a cover up but nothing like this, which has two fronts...Nassar and the instituational protection of athletes involved in sexual assault. Baylor is similar, but there aren't nearly as many cases and it didn't come on the heels of Metoo. Also MSU is not nearly the brand PSU football is.
The problem for Nike woudl be the precent. If they use a morals clause to drop MSU, would it seem like they have to do the same thing if Alabama had a similar (but smaller) issue?
I see Nike dropping MSU by ths summer.
January 29th, 2018 at 2:51 PM ^
I just don't agree with the whole "there are more cases" so this is worse argument. It either is, or it isn't. That argument holds no water with me. All three universities engaged in an active cover up of sexual assault and sexual abuse, that is fact. I also think the notion of "MeToo" causing this to be a bigger deal (while probably true) is BS. Laws were broke or not broke, that seems pretty black and white to me. It's not like anyone involved was "stealing bread because their family was starving". Brand popularity is a crap argument too, I don't care if it is USC or Duquesne. Profits shouldn't trump the law or dictate who gets dropped from sponsorship and who doesn't. I get it, that's how society works, but to me, that's not simple. That's a bunch of political BS and why our society is the way it is. Which is why Nike won't drop MSU because if they drop MSU, IMO, it ties their hands in being forced to drop the other three. Which you know they aren't going to do.