Staff Report
Judge William Bertlesman, senior district judge hearing the Jane Doe vs. Northern Kentucky University, et.al. lawsuit has ruled in favor of defendants Geoffrey Mearns, Kathleen Roberts and Ann James on their motion for “partial dismissal” of the complaints against them as individuals.
The dismissal order does not include former Police Chief Les Kachurek who is now represented by counsel separate from the others. He did not join in the university’s motion or file his own.
Jane Doe vs. Northern Kentucky University, et. al., involves a student who says she was raped in a campus dorm in 2013 and that the university’s own internal committee found she had very likely been assaulted by the male student identified. The suit involves her claim that the university did not protect her from further harassment by the perpetrator and did not follow their own procedures for doing so. Doe claims her attacker was never admonished or sanctioned for breaking the rules related to future contact with her.
The suit claims administrators were “indifferent” and perhaps “hostile” to her numerous pleas for help.
Bertlesman ruled to dismiss several counts of the suit, without oral argument. The ruling essentially narrows the scope to one count of an original eight. The one count remaining deals with a violation of Title IX.
The ruling covered “due process,” “First Amendment violations,” and “Breach of Contract” complaints brought by Doe.
On the due process issue, the Judge’s ruling says that though Doe alleges that “standards were violated by the individual defendants, the facts set forth to support such conclusion fall far short of meeting the constitutional standard. The FAC (First Amended Complaint) alleges that the University as an entity and the individual defendants failed to implement sanctions imposed on the accused student designed to keep him from encountering plaintiff on campus. No allegations are made that the student physically harassed or injured plaintiff during these encounters. Even when school officials fail to prevent verbal abuse, it has been held that the stringent standards for a substantive due process violation have not been met.”
On the First Amendment violation claimed by Doe: This complaint related to a demonstration on campus, after Jane Doe carried a mattress on her back to protest her treatment by the university. On the day of the demonstration in which other students joined in, the police chief, then Les Kachurek, sent an email to campus that Doe objected to and that President Mearns described as “well intended.”
The judge determined that none of the officials’ actions resulted in preventing Doe from exercising her First Amendment rights.
On Breach of Contact complaint: The judge said the NKU Student Code of Student Rights and Response does not constitute a contract, and the claim would not stand up anyway because “an officer of a corporation will not be individually bound when contracting as an agent of that corporation within the scope of his employment.”
On punitive damages: The judge dismissed all punitive damages against the four defendants cited in the motion.
The remaining count is a federal Title IX claim against NKU only, and not against any individuals.
“This has always been — first and foremost — a Title IX case,” said Jane Doe’s attorney, Kevin Murphy. “NKU has no explanation for their deliberate indifference to numerous young women who have been sexually assaulted on campus. We will look forward to the court and a jury hearing on these issues. Judge Bertlesman has already ruled that we can re-depose NKU Athletic Director Ken Bothof, and that will be our next step. They were sanctioned a week ago for trying to hide the truth.”
“We are gratified the court recognized that most of these claims were not supported by the facts and the law, and also that the court dismissed the individual claims made against current University employee,” said Amanda Nageleisen, University spokeswoman.
See official documents here:
NKU’s Motion/Memo for Partial Dismissal
Judge’s Order Granting Partial Dismissal