UA attorney: E-mail lawsuit really targets Nutt
Posted on Tuesday, July 17, 2007
An amended lawsuit over the University of Arkansas ’ handling of offensive e-mail to a former quarterback is merely a dig at football Coach Houston Nutt, a university attorney said.
“Although masquerading as a lawsuit against [UA officials ] the plaintiff ’s true target is Houston Nutt and his removal as the head football coach of the Razorback football program,” UA Associate General Counsel Scott Varady said in a court motion filed Monday in Washington County Circuit Court.
John David Terry of Mount Ida sued April 24 claiming Chancellor John A. White and UA System President B. Alan Sugg failed to properly investigate the December e-mail to quarterback Mitch Mustain.
The e-mail was sent by Teresa Prewett, a Little Rock woman who is a Nutt family friend.
Fort Smith attorney Eddie Christian Jr. represents Terry, who graduated from UA in 1986.
On June 4, Judge Mark Lindsay dismissed some of the suit but let Christian re-argue whether UA’s actions were an illegal exaction of public funds and whether a writ of mandamus forcing further action should be granted.
Christian filed the amended suit June 25, which focuses on a part of Lindsay’s ruling that said alternative remedies to litigation existed in the matter.
The amended suit contends an April 6 letter from Christian’s law firm and a Feb. 26 letter from Mustain’s mother, Beck Campbell, are evidence other remedies were pursued without success.
The letters ask the UA board of trustees to make White further investigate the e-mail situation. The board took no action.
UA has argued there’s no law dictating how White should have handled the matter, and that he used discretion and acted responsibly. White had Nutt investigate the e-mail, and the coach made Prewett write an apology letter to Mustain, barred her from the sidelines at games and asked that a filter be installed to prevent her from sending e-mail to Mustain and other students in the UA computer network.
Varady said in Monday’s motion that the amended suit is an effort to misuse the judicial system to meddle in UA’s athletic affairs.
The suit was filed in bad faith to “harass and maliciously harm White, Sugg and UA,” he wrote in the motion.
Further, the suit is moot because White took corrective measures and left the door open for Mustain himself to complain, but he never did. Mustain is no longer a UA student, he wrote.
Mustain was granted a release from his football scholarship in January and has enrolled at the University of Southern California.
Varady asked the judge to dismiss the suit and to award UA attorneys fees.
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