Report: Judge rules for consolidation in Northwestern hazing lawsuits, 2 cases will go to trial together
Two different lawsuits against Northwestern University regarding hazing allegations in the football program under former head coach Pat Fitzgerald will go to trial together, reports the Chicago Tribune.
Five former players in their lawsuits accuse Fitzgerald of allowing a culture of abusive hazing and doing nothing to stop it, while Fitzgerald denies any wrongdoing and claims Northwestern wrongfully fired him in July 2023 after the hazing scandal broke.
READ MORE: Northwestern Hazing Allegations
Last month, attorneys representing the group of former players in their lawsuits were granted a request to consolidate their cases with Fitzgerald’s lawsuit for discovery purposes. In a consolidated trial, a single jury will hear several former players’ cases at the same time the Fitzgerald lawsuit is heard.
Attorneys for Fitzgerald and for Northwestern, meanwhile, argued separately against consolidation, the Tribune reports. But in her filing Monday, Cook County Judge Kathy Flanagan wrote that the former coach’s case “cannot in any way be considered in a vacuum,” according to the report.
Monday’s decision for consolidation, the report says, significantly alters the course that both cases appeared to be on not long ago. Fitzgerald’s lawsuit had a trial date set for April 2025, which the former coach’s attorney was urging to be moved up. Meanwhile, the report says the hazing accusers’ cases were in mediation and appeared headed for a settlement.
But that mediation fell apart, according to the report, after attorneys accused Northwestern of mishandling confidential information. That eventually resulted in Monday’s consolidation ruling.
This could prove a difficult spot for Northwestern, the Tribune notes, because now the school might have to argue that it rightfully fired Fitzgerald, which at the same time would bolster the ex-players’ cases against the university.
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Since The Daily Northwestern broke the bombshell hazing allegations last summer, leading to Fitzgerald’s subsequent firing, former players have made more and more allegations. There are now about 25 former players who have filed lawsuits, and attorneys have said they expect more to come.
According to the the Tribune, the grouped cases for the five ex-players in this instance and Fitzgerald’s case would be the first to go to trial together, possibly as early as autumn 2025. That would be followed by trials for grouped “cohorts” of other hazing allegations, according to the report.
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