The Lions' Pride

Did the request for dismissal and the state's response happen more quickly than expected? How long until a normal ruling?

LOL...Agreed. ....at least until the next election!

Not even that would be enough to get this moron reelected. I love Penn State football. He wins, I say thanks and good riddance to Corbett.

I think this gets to the lawsuit. The taxpayers of the commonwealth provide significant funding to PSU. Whether you think it should be more or less shouldn't matter in the case. I think you referred to it as fungible. PSU received some 270mill last year.

In case anyone would like to read it.

Finished reading, and the closing lines are absolutely hilarious:

"The NCAA’s request is based on self-serving assurances that its only concern was protecting its organization and enforcing “basic values.” No Rule 12(b)(6) movant is entitled to such leaps of faith."

Basically saying it would take a leap of faith to assume that the NCAA is enforcing basic values. Hilarious.

What do you think of the rebuttal overall?

I enjoyed reading the full response. Do we know yet if Kane is on board with this?

I often see people claim that getting past the motion to dismiss and moving on to discovery is the big win. I assume that people believe this because they feel the NCAA will fold before allowing the commonwealth to dig through all their investigations and depose their leadership under oath. Just curious is that is still the sense people are getting.

Also, if the NCAA doesn't fold and allows this to go down the 2-3 year process, can the commonwealth change their plan and go after damages. That is, if the NCAA wants to drag it out, can PA go back and sue for damages occurred over the entire time if they ultimately win? I know they currently are not planning to go that route because the standard is higher and the risk of it getting dismissed is higher, but can that change or is it a decision that has to be made now?

Piggybacking on GRS to answer questions about my post, the more I think about it (and talk with another lawyer friend also invested in this), I would normally say there is a 0% chance that the NCAA's motion is granted. As GRS indicates, the motion is largely based on facts that aren't within the Complaint, and therefore, can't be considered. As such, it seems more and more likely that Judge Kane will summarily deny and the case will go forward.

I do disagree with GRS on whether this is a "big" win. I'm no antitrust expert, but I've done a little bit of work there and I've reviewed the law a little bit, and it seems to me that Pennsylvania has a pretty strong case if they can prove the facts of their Complaint (I am 100% confident that they can do this). I'm also pretty confident that the NCAA does not want the government (any government) digging around in its playbox. I think, if you make it to discovery, settlement follows in short order.

He'd have no mess to clean up if he didn't have a huge hand in creating it

thanks for the responses. I'm not an attorney (just married to one ;), but I tend to agree with 06 here in that I don't think the NCAA wants any part of discovery. Just look at the mess that came out of the miami and USC investigations and we almost have to assume similar methods were used in other investigations. The best thing PA did was go after them for treating PSU differently, even specifically pointing out a few specific cases in the suit. That argument will allow all other investigations to be within the scope of discovery so PA can go literally go digging through all their e-mails, documents, interviews, etc related to any investigation. The NCAA strikes me as an organization that has been corrupt for decades and it won't be too hard to get hands on documents or question people under oath to find some further damning evidence of how they operate. The NCAA is feeling the heat right now and if PA finds more gas for the fire they could be in real trouble.

Further, I think the NCAA has a "culture problem" and I'm not saying that in jest. I think for decades they have enjoyed free reign to do as they please with zero oversight other than that of their own membership, who for the most part doesn't care unless it's their school getting slammed. The result is 400 some schools against a handful that have legit complaints about being treated unfairly because of the lack of due process. As such, since the Tarkanian ruling decades ago, the NCAA has claimed to "clean up their methods", but have quickly slid back and possibly ended up further back than they started in the 70's.

Finally, I think the other big issue for the NCAA should this move towards trial is what is at risk should they lose. Getting rid of the PSU sanctions isn't really the issue nor is the loss of perceived power in being forced. I could be wrong, but I think this trial could challenge their position as a "non state actor" from Tarkanian v. NCAA. If that is the case, they will be SOL because as a state actor they will be bound to due process, which will completely change their role and identity.