Paula LavigneESPN Staff Writer Oct 20, 2023, 12:53pm ET3 minute read
Former Baylor football coach Art Briles was not negligent in the case of a student who reported being physically assaulted by one of his players in 2014, a federal judge ruled Friday.
U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman dismissed the gross negligence claims against Briles, along with former athletic director Ian McCaw and Baylor University, saying that “no reasonable jury could conclude based on the evidence presented at trial” that the defendants had acted “grossly negligently”.
The plaintiff, former Baylor student Dolores Lozano, had alleged that the three defendants’ negligence after she reported her first attack in March 2014 resulted in her being subjected to further abuse by football player Devin Chafin, with who she had been together.
“This case has always been about Ms. Lozano getting her place in court,” Pitman said Thursday, but after hearing the evidence, he said there simply wasn’t enough evidence to convince a jury. That leaves a Title IX claim and a negligence claim against Baylor as the only matters to be presented to the jury, which reconvenes on Monday. Lozano has alleged that the school’s general failure to respond and respond appropriately to reports of sexual violence placed it at greater risk of assault and constituted a violation of Title IX.
McCaw and Briles testified Thursday. McCaw said that when he received a report about Lozano’s allegations from one of his employees in 2014, he took appropriate action and ensured that she was given information about how to further report the allegations. Briles said he simply didn’t know anything about Lozano or her reports against Chafin until she filed her lawsuit in 2016. He said he never communicated with Lozano.
Reid Simpson, an attorney for Briles, stood on the courthouse steps Friday morning in front of reporters and spoke to Briles by phone to share the news. “I appreciate you,” Briles was heard saying on speakerphone.
“Everything that has been said about him is not true,” Simpson said. During the trial, Simpson’s questioning of witnesses often ended with a series of questions about whether there was evidence that Briles covered up sexual assaults, discouraged victims from reporting assaults, or tried to interfere with investigations, and the witnesses denied knowledge of it have actions.
Asked whether Friday’s ruling would help Briles’ reputation following the 2016 investigation that led to his firing, Simpson said: “I hope it helps.”
McCaw’s attorney, Thomas Brandt, said he was pleased with the verdict but said the decision “means nothing” in light of the broader sexual assault violations against Baylor and McCaw.
The law firm Pepper Hamilton, which investigated the school’s handling of reports of sexual violence in 2015 and 2016, had access to dozens of reports and used five of them – all involving football players – in its presentation to Baylor regents in May 2016. Lozano’s domestic violence case was not one of them.
In her opening statement to jurors Monday, Baylor attorney Julie Springer acknowledged the school’s history of sexual violence victims and the findings of the 2016 investigation into failures in responding to and reporting incidents of sexual violence across the university revealed.
“There is no question that bad things happened and mistakes were made at Baylor. Baylor accepts and takes responsibility for these mistakes,” she said. “This case is not one of the cases in the [investigation] Results. In the case of Dolores Lozano, Baylor got it right.