Judge: Negligence suits filed vs. Art Briles, Baylor and former AD can continue
Civil suits against former Baylor coach Art Briles, the school and its former athletic director were deemed worthy to proceed by a federal judge on Friday.
Jasmin Hernandez, a woman who was raped by former Baylor player Tevin Elliott, is accusing Baylor and former officials at the school of indifference. Elliott is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for rape and was accused by multiple women of sexual assault.
Briles, [former athletic director Ian] McCaw and Baylor had asked the court to dismiss Hernandez’s claims against them, and certain aspects of her case were thrown out, but the judge upheld enough of her argument to allow her case to proceed against all three parties.
In his ruling on Briles and McCaw, Pitman wrote, ” ‘Disturbing’ is an apt descriptor for allegations that (Briles and McCaw) put the interests of the football team or the reputation of the university ahead of ther students’ interest in not being sexually assaulted, ultimately leading to Plaintiff’s own sexual assault by Elliott.”
Hernandez is the same woman who Briles said he’d meet with over the summer. He didn’t meet with her or attend a mediation session between her and Baylor after reaching a settlement with the school the day before. Her lawyer said that Briles used the possibility of the meeting “as leverage to negotiate his wrongful termination claim” vs. Baylor. The school fired Briles in May after an outside investigation revealed the depth of Baylor’s mishandling of sexual assault accusations at the school.
Briles said in a September interview with ESPN that wasn’t able to meet with her because of the settlement.
Hernandez says in her suit that Baylor officials failed to train and educate its employees regarding the appropriate ways to handle sexual assault claims.
McCaw was sanctioned by the university after the Pepper Hamilton investigation and later resigned from the school. He’s currently the athletic director at Liberty University, a school that is on Baylor’s 2017 non-conference schedule.
Briles hasn’t found another coaching job since he was fired from Baylor. He spoke at a coaching event in Alabama earlier this week and said he’d like to coach for another 10 years. However, he told Al.com that he couldn’t discuss what happened in his time at Baylor because of non-disclosure agreements.
A lawsuit filed in January alleges 52 assaults were committed by at least 31 players at Baylor from 2011-14 and that the football program used sex to sell itself to recruits.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of Dr. Saturday and From the Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
