Section 1.8

January 16th, 2019 at 9:14 PM ^

Because "MGoBlog" naturally has the real, true best interest of Michigan State University at heart.  Right?

Look, I am no great advocate for much of anything having to do with MSU.  But it is so transparent; the toxic mix tonight of rivalry trashtalk, and #MeToo p.c. progressivism.

I'm not so sure if any other sane and serious person will appear on the MGoBoard to discuss this rationally.  I can promise them, they will be abused for their trouble.  As I have been, and surely will be in the hours to come.

 

 

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Section 1.8

January 16th, 2019 at 10:27 PM ^

I have made the "politics" point(s) in relation to Engler, and the MSU BoT, and Engler's personal history with the trial lawyers, because that is what any good journalist would point you to.  I actually feel vindicated tonight.  Certainly not over the fate of Engler (who never needed this job); but rather because I said essentially; this is very, very political at all kinds of current and historical levels.  And that is exactly what it turned out to be.

Just think, Timmmaay... The Plaintiffs will be getting settlements in the general range of $250,000 to $2.5 Million, depending on their circumstances.  Their lawyers are going to split a contingency fee pot of something approaching a staggering $165 Million.  The defense attorneys (who did a rather good job under Engler's leadership) got paid, on the order of $17 Million.  Not contingency rates, but not bad.

Only Engler gave up his salary.  The victims got paid, the plaintiff lawyers got paid, the defense lawyers got paid, the faculty is getting paid, the Trustees are getting paid.  Engler isn't getting paid.  Say whatever you want about Engler; but it can't be based on greed or avarice.  Alone, that is Engler's position.

 

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East German Judge

January 16th, 2019 at 10:54 PM ^

engler himself decided not to get paid, but that does not mean he can be a TOTAL JACKASS in doing this "community service" and insulting victims!!! 

Would have been better to have had someone else who took the money, but was not such an arrogant prick and who didn't further tarnish staee's reputation.

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ppToilet

January 16th, 2019 at 11:24 PM ^

When Engler said that victims of sexual abuse are enjoying their celebrity status, then he's dug his own grave. This wasn't just one transgression either. Nasser is scum and his enablers are vile. Engler was a politically appointed lackey who diminishes MSU and its abused students.

Honestly, read your post again. If your daughter were sexually abused, you'd punch somebody in the face asserting that money was the goal. Do you really think this is about money? Have you no shame or decency?

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ThorsHammer

January 17th, 2019 at 9:33 AM ^

R. Kelly is a victim of journalism and shedding light on truth. Last time I checked from my training as a biochemist, research and uncovering the truth has no liberal or conservative point of view. It is just the truth. 

There is nothing that grinds my gears more when some political lackey tries to attack the messenger. 

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ThorsHammer

January 17th, 2019 at 9:29 AM ^

that doesn't excuse Engler from throwing around his BS alpha male toxic masculinity around as a shield for the BoT and Michigan State University. Anyone that has been paying attention to Michigan politics for the past 30 years knows that Engler's entire career is based upon his ability to act like a bully. Engler has thrived on belittling others for years while protecting his "boys."  My Dad was a MEA union rep during the Engler administration. He could tell you stories about Engler and his crew. 

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Blue in St Lou

January 16th, 2019 at 8:28 PM ^

He's pretty disgraced as it is. Today, 23 deans and other top administrators demanded that he be fired. The board set a meeting to fire him tomorrow morning. He's barely out the door before it slams on him. And I assume he gets no severance.

But why it took this long is something the board, deans and other top administrators should answer.

 

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Section 1.8

January 16th, 2019 at 9:19 PM ^

Wait just a minute.  Where is there any allegation of "ethical" wrongdoing by Engler in the last year?  Where is there any evidence of any ethical misconduct by Engler.

I get it; many of you hate Engler because of who he was as a 3-term governor, and for what he represented before being asked to take the MSU job on an interim basis.  Got it.  And you think that he was uncaring, insensitive, and hurtful to some/all of the Nassar victims.

I don't really want to argue any of that; I want to know where anybody gets off alleging an "ethical" lapse on Engler's part.

 

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TIMMMAAY

January 16th, 2019 at 9:50 PM ^

Where has there been any ethical wrongdoing? 

Are. You. Fucking. Serious. 

You really are as bad as you come off, I guess. I know full well you pay attention to these things. So for you to even ask that question here, you're just looking for an argument. I can't really fathom how you would actually try to defend your position, and I'm far too busy to engage. But fuck you for even posting that trash. 

I care nothing about his politics, though I don't expect you to believe that, cynical as you are. 

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Section 1.8

January 17th, 2019 at 12:02 AM ^

You damned right I am serious.  About any alleged ethical violations by Engler.  Engler, not Nassar, or Lou Anna Simon, or Strampel or Klages or anybody else.

Ethical violations; not comments that you don't approve of, or that newspaper columnists don't like.

 

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Blue in St Lou

January 16th, 2019 at 9:56 PM ^

Well, apparently, his actions were motivated by his belief that the victims simply loved the limelight. Would that lead to unethical actions? I don’t know. You’re apparently the expert on ethics.

Or maybe he didn’t believe it but said it to a newspaper for — what? PR reasons?. I don’t think you need to be an expert on ethics to know if that’s unethical.

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Section 1.8

January 16th, 2019 at 10:50 PM ^

I don't know if you intentionally mischaracterized Engler's words, or if you really don't know how Engler was quoted coming out of a meeting with the Detroit News Editorial Board.

Engler never said or implied that all victims of Nassar "simply loved the limelight."  And those are most assuredly your words because they were not Engler's.

Engler, in that quote, was trying to compare different groups of victims, including some who had been plaintiffs in litigation versus others who were either more distant from the harm or who had, for whatever reasons, not been part of the initial large settlement.  Engler was talking first and foremost about mental health care costs for all victims of all classifications, and then about how he had observed them utilizing those services and who seemed to be doing well.

So no; it was nothing like the impression you tried to generate.

And now back to "ethics."  I see this debate going in a profoundly stupid direction, so why don't you be specific about what Engler did or said that was unethical, and why it was unethical.  I don't think that you are even close.

 

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Section 1.8

January 16th, 2019 at 11:09 PM ^

I might say, "That's a bullshit story and you know it."  But in fairness to you, you might not know it.

That woman and her mother attended a public meeting where they knew that they might have a chance to approach Engler personally.  They got that chance, and they took it.  In the course of the discussion that they provoked with Engler, in which they were giving Engler an earful and Engler was taking it, and not avoiding them, Engler asked the woman as a purely rhetorical exercise what amount of money would satisfy her, since the litigation was all about amounts of money for the vicitms.  Engler had no settlement authority, which at that time was all tied up in coverage lawsuits with MSU's insurers.  Engler did not make a settlement offer; only the Plaintiff turned it into a faux "offer" when she described the encounter to her attorney and the eager Nassar Press Corps.

And what pisses me off about this story in particular is that I engaged in the very same discussion on this very same MGoBoard when it happened.  I have done this before. 

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evenyoubrutus

January 16th, 2019 at 11:13 PM ^

You have approximately zero right to claim intellectual authority when you outright accused every user here of being driven by political affiliation in their disdain for Engler. 

However, if mental gymnastics were an Olympic sport, you'd be a gold medalist. 

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TIMMMAAY

January 20th, 2019 at 2:46 PM ^

And this is why I won't engage with you beyond calling out your bullshit. 

You just parse your words such that you can apply your argument to a given context. It's exhausting, and I don't have time for it. You're just as morally bankrupt as Engler is, and that's all I really need to know. 

Work on being a better human being, not a better lawyer. 

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Section 1.8

January 16th, 2019 at 11:14 PM ^

If you had read more carefully the details of my previous comments, I never made this about politics exclusively.  I wrote earlier tonight that this all reeks of the toxic combination of rivalry trashtalk, plus ordinary political correctness, plus a political complex that is as much historical as it is current politics.  So read better and try to keep up.

 

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ZooWolverine

January 16th, 2019 at 10:34 PM ^

I was relatively young at the time he was governor, not yet old enough to vote in any election involving him. I have no meaningful opinions about his time in the position of governor. My politics have changed in many ways since that time as I've aged, and I've never even thought to go back and learn enough about his 3 terms to form a meaningful opinion about him during that time.

Which is a long way of saying my opinion of his performance at State are unimpacted by his time as governor.

From all evidence of his time at Michigan State, Engler is a horrible person. I would consider it unethical to say that victims who are seeking meaningful change in response to atrocious behavior are actually just seeking the spotlight or money. Apparently you disagree since you sort of concede that he is hurtful to victims but still ask for unethical behavior. So some other examples:

- Engler tried to negotiate a settlement with a victim without her lawyer present. He then lied to the victim about the behavior of other victims in negotiating settlements.

- Engler accused another victim of receiving kickbacks from attorneys involved in the lawsuits. These claims appear to be entirely unfounded

- Engler closed an account created to reimburse victims for their counseling bills, which would have left many victims with substantial bills for visits they had already gone to. When this caused blowback, he made multiple inaccurate statements to defend the action.

- Engler likely violated federal law by releasing privileged counseling records of a sexual assault victim in an attempt to undermine her statement

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Section 1.8

January 17th, 2019 at 10:15 AM ^

- Engler tried to negotiate a settlement with a victim without her lawyer present. He then lied to the victim about the behavior of other victims in negotiating settlements.

- Engler accused another victim of receiving kickbacks from attorneys involved in the lawsuits. These claims appear to be entirely unfounded

- Engler closed an account created to reimburse victims for their counseling bills, which would have left many victims with substantial bills for visits they had already gone to. When this caused blowback, he made multiple inaccurate statements to defend the action.

- Engler likely violated federal law by releasing privileged counseling records of a sexual assault victim in an attempt to undermine her statement

I answered that first lie already.  Engler had one encounter with that victim.  In an open meeting.  Where she confronted him, and Engler asked rhetorically what amount of money she would be satisfied with, insofar as she was a plaintiff involved in litigation.  To characterize that as trying "to negotiate a settlement without her lawyer present" is a laughable, nonsensical exaggeration.

The "kickbacks" comment was made by Engler in a private email to MSU counsel Carol Viventi.  It was a private comment; it was arguably privileged (but deterimined not to be, and was unearthed via a FOIA request from the Chronicle of Higher Education) but in no event was it any sort of "allegation" and it was not communicated publicly.  Here is more context for that quote from Engler:

"The survivors now are being manipulated by trial lawyers who in the end will each get millions of dollars more than any of (sic) individual survivors with the exception of Denhollander who is likely to get (sic) kickback from Manley (sic) for her role in the trial lawyer manipulation," Engler said, according to the emails obtained by the Chronicle of Higher Education. 

“It is too bad we can’t have a debate about who is really trying to help those who were harmed by Nassar,” Engler continued. “At least, all of the positive changes are beginning to get some modest attention. It will be years before the use and abuse by trial lawyers point is understood. Have a good Sunday. See you Tuesday morning. John.”

So that is how I respond to that.  For his part, Engler apologized for that private email.  I don't think that anyone has, or will, investigate whether Denhollander, who is now an attorney herself, has derived any income out of the MSU settlement.  I have no proof that Engler was right; I expect that as a matter of fact, Engler may have been right.  More particularly, Denhollander might well have derived a referral fee as an attorney if she steered Nassar-victim clients to one of the four plaintiff lawfirms in the settlement.  There exists no proof that she did not do that.

Engler's closing of the special victim counseling account has been widely covered in the press.  Engler rolled that account into the general victim settlement fund after it was discovered that rampant fraud was occurring in relation to the closed account.  I urge you to review all of that reporting with a careful eye.

I am unfamiliar with the last point; I just don't know that story.

 

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Section 1.8

January 17th, 2019 at 1:00 PM ^

I’ll put it another way; has anyone investigated it?  You need to understand; I am not alleging any illegal conduct by Denhollander.  And Engler shouldn’t have used the word “kickback” insofar as the correct terminology would be “referral fee.”  I’m very much interested in this because it is a hard thing to get at.  Contingency fee splitting is done all the time — it is how the Sam Bernstein Law Firm was able to fund the political campaigns of Richard Bernstein (Michigan Supreme Court) and Mark Bernstein (UM Regent) as well as being a huge money television sponsor and general political donor.  But we rarely get to investigate it or count the dollars.  As a start, I’d be happy with any journalist who asked Denhollander some very basic but pointed questions about her involvement in the MSU litigation; not as a plaintiff but instead as an attorney, and whether she in fact has gotten any fees for her role as an attorney in the case.

Two days ago, I asked Julie Mack of MLive about any public info on the attorney fees in the large settlement.  She has written about it.  I will let you know if she has any insight on how to get more info.

But it’s hard.  While MSU is a public institution and has to follow laws on open meetings and FOIA requests, the plaintiff attorneys operate in private and often not even subject to civil discovery based on attorney-client privilege.

Again; this was never a public allegation made by Engler.  It was a private comment, intended to be private and casual, and only became public by a FOIA request.

 

 

 

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lhglrkwg

January 17th, 2019 at 6:11 AM ^

Come on man

I had never heard of Engler before MSU (not a Michigan native). I dislike him because he's a scumbag who was brazenly trying to sweep this investigation under the rug while also publicly slandering the victims. You say you aren't making this about politics but you are obviously insinuating that its the 'dems' who threw him out for political reasons.

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