NCAA Claims Paterno Estate is Delaying Lawsuit, Contradicting Previous Arguments

The National Collegiate Athletic Assocation continues to roll with the punches, while throwing in a few swings of its own.

In a new filing in the lawsuit between the Paterno estate and the NCAA in Centre County Court, the NCAA has gone on the offensive while defending against claims that it overstepped its authority in the aftermath of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal. The athletic organizations claims the plaintiffs in the lawsuit repeatedly rehash arguments already rejected by the court, while contradicting their own words in previous filings.

Since they filed their lawsuit last year, the plaintiffs in the lawsuit — which includes the estate of former Penn State head football coach Joe Paterno, former assistant coaches Jay Paterno and William Kenney, and university trustee Al Clemens — have fought with the NCAA over whether the Paterno estate has legal standing to sue the NCAA.

The NCAA argues that Joe Paterno was not “an involved individual” concerning the fallout from the Sandusky scandal because the former coach passed before the NCAA signed the consent decree with Penn State. The courts agreed with this argument in a Sept. 11 ruling. The plaintiffs have countered this idea by arguing that Paterno was alive when the NCAA began its investigation, but the NCAA says this claim doesn’t hold water.

“Their new allegations are flatly incompatible with their past filings in the court,” the filing reads, and quotes from several filings in which the plaintiffs claim that the NCAA “conducted no investigation at all.”

Monday’s filing also accuses the plaintiffs of purposefully slowing the progress of the lawsuit by continuing to argue for Joe Paterno’s involvement, even though a Sept. 11 ruling found that “his estate has no rights as an ‘involved individual’ now.”

“It is Plaintiffs who are seeking to delay matters by attempting to resuscitate claims that this Court has already dismissed,” Monday’s filing reads.

In its Sept. 11 ruling, the court also maintained that the plaintiffs had the basis to challenge to consent decree, which allowed the NCAA to impose numerous sanctions against Penn State after the Sandusky scandal broke. The plaintiffs seek monetary damages from the NCAA and a ruling that the consent decree is invalid. A hearing in the case is scheduled for Jan. 5, 2015.

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