Like the tortured 1 in 5 number?
@johndoe4, You count all of those cases, and tell me where I’m fudging the numbers. I don’t see what you’re driving at
What I am driving at, mom12345, is that 5 out of 73 (7%) is not a fair number, it’s a small percentage.
@johndoe4 … go through each case. Count how many were actually found ‘in favor of plaintiff’. Not that many. Now out of those, count how many were settled in the past 2 years. Hmmm even less. There are many still pending. There are also many that were settled out of court. Those don’t translate to ‘in favor of plaintiff’. That just means that both parties reached a settlement of which we don’t know the details.
I stand by my statement. 5 were decided upon by a judge this past year, and out of those 5… all were dismissed.
Not so “obv.” to me. Sure, being kicked out of college for sexual assault may not be equivalent to 40 years hard labor in the gulag, but it’s still a severely life-alterting event, often procluding a prestigious degree, professional school, career opportunities and bringing extreme social stigma on the accused and their families.
So before you tell me that students better be pretty dn sure that they follow their college’s regulations regarding sexual behavior, let’s agree that the colleges better be pretty dn sure that they follow their own regulations on how to investigate and adjudicate sexual assault. Even setting aside whether or not college Title IX regulations provide sufficient protection to the accused (and I don’t think they do) there is ample reason to believe they are being wildly and repeatedly flouted.
I looked over the civil cases over the last couple of years from a voice for males. I don’t see the accused who sued the schools winning that many cases. There are many cases still pending so we will see. @mom12345 is right.
From reading posts on these threads, I thought the accused were winning a vast majority of these civil cases.
For the third time-- I would say she took a risk that put her in a situation where another student filed a sexual assault claim against her. The University found that she was in fact responsible and she was expelled. What exactly is your point here though? I am already on record as saying that I believe the rules should apply equally to men and to women.
In reading some of your posts I am thinking you have a somewhat outdated view of women’s attitudes – especially towards sex. Something to be “endured?” I don’t know any women who view sex in that way.
I’m not even a lawyer and I know this analysis is completely ridiculous. It doesn’t sound like you know very much about how these things work.
Look, I’m not taking sides about how meritorious these cases are because I haven’t done the homework and I’m not qualified to. Posters who are experienced lawyers can chime in and correct me if I bungle this, but here’s how I would analyze it -
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Practically the first thing a college will do is file a motion to dismiss. This will get argued and decided in the first few months, and the truly weak cases will get dismissed. So it’s no surprise at all that the cases decided first will be the ones that are dismissed in favor of the college because essentially no discovery or trial even has to take place. These dismissals will be public, as you’re seeing.
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The rule of thumb I’ve always been told to use in commercial litigation is that 90% of the cases that survive a motion to dismiss will be settled. Only a small number go to trial. Almost always both parties will agree to a confidential settlement, so the general public will never know how strong the case was. However, there will be a group of 20 lawyers who trade gossip amongst each other about the terms of the settlements. They and the insurers are really the ones who will have the complete picture when all the dust settles. You, I, and practically everyone else won’t know for many many years (if ever) how these particular cases are going to turn out. Best case, in several years we might get a general sense of which way the wind is blowing.
@al2simon, I’m sure you’re right that most of the cases are silently settled and we have no idea what the settlement was. But as to the five cases this year that were decided by a judge, we shouldn’t assume that they were the ones settled first. They were the ones settled this year, but initiated whenever. Shouldn’t we assume that the cases decided by a judge this year are representative of this kind of case when decided by a judge?
I think it’s too early to evaluate. My count from the Voice for Male Students’ database is that in 2014 and 2015 ten cases were settled out of court or decided in favor of the plaintiffs, 5 were decided in favor of the college or dismissed by the judge. I understand that “confidential settlement” isn’t the same as a win for the plaintiff, but I think it’s fair to count settlements on the “lean toward the accused” side. I also understand that “dismissed” isn’t the same as a win for the defendants, but I think it’s fair to count cases that are thrown out on the “lean toward the colleges” side.
There are currently 30+ pending cases that were filed in 2014 and 2015. I think we have to see which way the judicial wind blows before we can conclude whether these cases will impact Dear Colleague regulations or not.
I think we also have to understand that the objective of many of these cases is not to get the accused reinstated in their colleges or for financial gain, but rather to get the violation expunged from the accused’s permanent records and to affect change over time in the way colleges adjudicate sexual assault.
I don’t the colleges are botching all the cases and I don’t think all of the accused – whether they sue or not – are not responsible. What I do think is that the Title IX sexual assault procedures and policies need to be reformed.
The VFMS database is constantly updated so don’t shoot me if I’m off one or two, but that’s the count I made last month. The date for pending cases is the date filed. The date for decided cases is the date of the settlement or decision.
Look over the number of rape cases brought in the courts and see how many are successful. Does that mean that women aren’t raped?
I thought so.
@JohnDoe4, I’ve been enjoying your posts enormously.
This is misleading. Forget the settlements. How many cases were actually decided in favor of the plaintiffs?
I see Tulane lost in 2014. I think a school lost in 2011.
There are more cases pending now than before.
CF - I didn’t do the work here myself (always a mistake for these ideological hot button topics, I know, I know). I’m relying on mom12345’s statement “Civil suits against universities seem to be resulting in a fair amount of dismissals.” and that the figure of 5 was for 5 dismissals. In that case, you have a “censored data” problem - basically, to good approximation the only thing you can see in the first few years are dismissals. Even when “steady state” is reached after several years this effect will heavily contaminate the data, though exactly how severe the bias is will depend on the proportion of truly weak cases to the fraction of cases that go all the way to a verdict, the rate of filing of cases, and what factors cause the parties not to settle.
Added - P.S. The insurers are going to have a strong say in what cases get settled. For example, I think I read that it’s rumored that Duke paid out over $20 million dollars to the lacrosse players, and the insurers balked at covering the amount. Duke was supposedly quite mad at them.
The rape cases are criminal cases. The standard is reasonable doubt.
These other cases are civil cases. I have been told the preponderance of evidence standard is easy to meet,
I’ll look at the figures again when I have a chance; however I don’t agree that we should completely disregard the settlements as I’m sure in many cases the plaintiffs are as eager to settle as the defendants, especially if they get the findings expunged from their transcripts.
But to make the point for the third time, it’s too early to tell which way the courts are heading on these cases. I wouldn’t bet on either side.
So you’re saying that the meritorious lawsuits that are going to go to trial and result in a plaintiff win haven’t gone to trial yet? OK, I’ll buy that.
We can’t really tell much from these lawsuits. Even if we know that a case settled, the college could have just been paying the plaintiff to go away; that happens a lot. There could be many guys who were unfairly dismissed but couldn’t afford to sue. And it’s kind of silly to think that the cases that have resulted in lawsuits are representative of all sexual misconduct college results.
@momrath, I looked. I think I saw two wins for the plaintiffs since 2011. One win was $25,000.
I am thinking that the insurance companies are in the driver’s seat when it comes to the settlements. At least for the monetary portion. It would be very interesting to see what the colleges are or aren’t agreeing to when it comes to expungement of records.
Some of these guys should win their cases. Even a Title IX supporter like me can admit that some of the colleges screwed up their procedures.
It’s hard to analyze the settlements since many of them are confidential, but I think it’s a fair assumption that in settling the college gave something valuable to the plaintiff. It could be money, it could be a clean record and the ability to move on with life, even if it’s not an admission of wrongdoing.
The UC Boulder suit is a case in point. As part of his settlement, John Doe agreed to withdraw from the university and the university agreed not to disclose the details of his disciplinary record, to remove the sanction (suspension) from his transcript and to provide him with a positive reference. The payout, which was a token $15,000, was not the important “win”.
http://www.coloradodaily.com/cu-boulder/ci_27566071/cu-boulder-paying-john-doe-15k-settle-title
A side note on this case: The settlement has put UC Boulder in a difficult, even hypocritical, position. They did not agree to reverse their decision that John was responsible for non-consensual sexual intercourse and non-consensual sexual contact. Butt they did agree not to reveal that decision (unless John issues a waiver that allows them to do so) and to give John a positive recommendation. So they are either refusing justice to an innocent person or covering up for a sexual offender. They can’t have it both ways.