Duke wisely owned its contribution to the fact that these LAX students were, in essence, shunned during this process. They seem to acknowledge that the should have supported their students while the judicial process ran its course. Smart move to own up and put it to bed.</p>
<p>As for Nifong, geez, even Rosie O’Donnell was smart enough to know when to fold 'em. Nifong is clearly in a little delusional world of his own…</p>
<p>“DURHAM, N.C. (AP) – A judge said Monday he would order Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong to leave his duties immediately after he was disbarred for his misconduct in the Duke University rape case.”</p>
<p>I was about to cut and paste, but the copyright notice stopped me. I’m sure y’all have seen the the judge suspended Nifong effective tomorrow. Nifong seems determined to make sure that his name goes down in history as the biggest jerk ever. From day 1 right up until day the last I found myself aghast at the things he was doing… and kept doing. Making his resignation effective July 13 ? After being disbarred? After being told in open court on national TV that you are a heinous nincompoop? </p>
<p>Of all the many things he did, I still can’t believe that he so openly and obviously tampered with a witness, ie arresting the taxi driver.</p>
<p>toblin~Duke settled with Mike Pressler, the former lax coach, about 2 weeks ago. Pressler has been on a little tour with his new book about his take on the case and being forced to resign. </p>
<p>Judge Hudson must have heard what the Governor said, because he initially said that he’d let Nifong stay til July–the **** must have hit the fan in Durham and that’s why he reversed his decision and is forcing him to leave. There is even going to be a sheriff there to make sure he isn’t trying to act as a DA!</p>
<p>NJres~ the quote from Rae Evans was from October. Nifong should have paid attention, but he was just too wrapped up in his November election to care about what he was doing to these young men (and ultimately to himself) I have no pity for him–he still doesn’t get it!</p>
<p>Maybe all the parents of current Duke students can get a one year rebate on last year’s tuition.? what the heck? All our kids were definitely impacted.! ;)</p>
<p>(My S actually lived in the same dorm as some of the lacrosse players at the time. His dorm was surrounded by police for a few days…)</p>
<p>I think he suffered mental anxiety. I know I sure did. :o</p>
<p>IMO, the liability trouble that Duke could have been subject to was the fact that they did not protect the students from an emotionaly upsetting and potentially dangerous climate on the campus. From the stories that were told of players being accosted by “pot bangers” and other students and of having professors verbally take them down in classes and in the infamous ad, not to mention the grade retaliation issues, Duke did not protect these kids.</p>
<p>If they were of another race or sexual orientation and were being openly attacked, the school would have stepped in and given them the protection that they deserved and are entitled to.</p>
<p>I’m not a lawyer, but I’ve been to enough affirmative action training to know that a company/school has to investigate and stop verbal or physical abuse of anyone who reports it or they can be held liable.</p>
<p>Any thoughts on what the settlement could be?</p>
<p>I don’t think it mattered whether the boys had a valid claim against Duke or not. This could be strictly a PR move. Duke’s legal counsel probably told them to wrap up every piece of this mess in any way necessary. They could not take the chance of lawsuits dragging on for years over this because they were going to look like the bad guys.</p>
<p>Given the hit Duke’s attractiveness took (e.g., applications were flat while comparable institutions increased 10+%), a quick end to the debacle will be worth every penny of the settlement.</p>
<p>I practice in an entirely different area of law and don’t pretend to have any expertise with the sorts of legal claims that could conceivably have been made here against Duke. But for what it’s worth, my hunch is that any such claims would have been, at best, extremely shaky from both a legal and a factual standpoint.</p>
<p>What often gets lost in our litigation-mad society is the fundamental difference between these two propositions: (1) that some person or institution could, or should, have handled a situation differently, and (2) that their handling of the situation gives rise to a legally and factually viable cause of action. Duke’s handling of this situation is obviously subject to all sorts of second-guessing. (It would have been subject to lots of second-guessing no matter how they had handled it.) But that’s a far cry from saying that they committed some legally cognizable wrong (as a matter of contract or tort law) against these young men and their families.</p>
<p>I agree with the view expressed that Duke needed, from a public-relations standpoint, to do whatever they could to try to put this whole matter behind them - irrespective of whether or not they had any real legal exposure. And the beauty of a settlement in which the details are not disclosed is that it appears to allow everyone to walk away with their heads held high.</p>
<p>…So retirement won’t be so bad for Nifong. It will be a lot better than most people who put in an honest day’s work! :eek:</p>
<p>“Dick Ellis, a spokesman for the state Administrative Office of the Courts, said Nifong will still be eligible for his full retirement benefits _ a pension and health care _ that he accrued while working as a state employee for nearly 30 years.”</p>
<p>ag54, don’t hide behind ambiguous words. What you intend to say is that if the LAX players were Black students, the situation would have been handled much differently [favorable treatment], isn’t that your meaning?</p>
<p>Well, I don’t agree because there have been many events of purported assaults on college campuses and if the assailants were Black they absolutely were subjected to the dictates of the criminal justices system, such as having every black male at Oakland College in Michigan and an upstate SUNY campus being detained or brought in for questioning in such cases a few years ago.</p>
<p>My hunch is that they players would have used defamation as a possible claim against Duke. Another would have grown from Duke’s failure to protect them from harassment by other students and the public. In the end, it doesn’t matter. They were guilty of the old catch all charge that police used years ago to get people off the streets - “failure to do right.”</p>
<p>I’ll second what Epistrophy said: The students had a legitimate beef with Duke but a questionable lawsuit. You can fit the past events into the nominal description of various different legally cognizable claims, but the bottom line is that generally people do not recover damages in court for these kinds of things absent significant public scrutiny. There’s been no disclosure of the terms of the settlement; my guess is that it was based more on what Duke felt it “owed” the boys than what Duke thought a judge and jury would award. Sometimes it works that way; not often.</p>
<p>I would assume that the terms of the settlement are sealed. I would expect that Duke wants the discussion of this stuff stopped, and wants to move on. Sometimes you have to pay for this priviledge, and Duke did.</p>
<p>Interesting quote from Chronicle of Higher Education (online):</p>
<p>""While the terms of the settlement were not released, one important detail did leak out. In an e-mail message obtained by The Chronicle, Paul H. Haagen, a professor of law at Duke, informed university faculty members that under the terms of the agreement, they had been “released from any claims of liability related to the lacrosse matter.” "</p>