A federal judge from the Western District of New York has granted, in part, the NCAA’s request to have a coach and his attorney more adequately answer the association’s requests for admissions.
The discovery ruling was part of the long-running litigation involving Timothy Cohane, the former head basketball coach for the State University of New York at Buffalo, who sued the NCAA, alleging that he was denied due process and deprived of a liberty interest during the course of an investigation and hearing with respect to alleged violations of NCAA rules.
By way of background, Cohane was hired by the school in 1993. He continued to coach the team for five more years at which point defendant Robert Arkeilpane was hired as SUNY’s athletic director.
Cohane accused Arkeilpane of leveraging “a pre-existing friendship and business relationship with Rob Fournier, the then-Director of Compliance for the MAC” to have Cohane accused of violating NCAA rules. Fournier reported the alleged violations to the NCAA.
According to Cohane, “the SUNY Defendants authorized, assisted and conspired with Fournier to violate his due process rights as well as the protocols and rules promulgated by the NCAA and MAC. Specifically, with the consent of the SUNY Defendants, Fournier conducted interviews without tape recording them, as required, prepared affidavits for adverse witnesses, intimidated witnesses into giving damaging testimony against Cohane, misrepresented himself to potential witnesses by claiming that he was an attorney or an employee of SUNY Buffalo, and refused Cohane’s request for information regarding the nature of charges against him or documentation of his alleged infractions.”
The litigation and subsequent judicial opinions have been reported on extensively in Sports Litigation Alert.
The current dispute centered on the NCAA’s motion challenging nine of the plaintiff’s responses to its first request for admissions as inadequate.
The plaintiff claimed that the requests were “crafted in such a manner so as to attempt to pigeonhole the plaintiff into erroneous admissions that go to the heart of the matter before this court, i.e., fairness and the opportunity to be heard and respond to charges.”
The court reviewed Rule 36(a)(1) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which provides that “a party may serve on any other party a written request to admit, for purposes of the pending action only, the truth of any matters within the scope of Rule 26(b)(1) relating to: (A) facts, the application of law to fact, or opinions about either; and (B) the genuineness of any described documents.”
The court continued: “If a matter is not admitted, the answer must specifically deny it or state in detail why the answering party cannot truthfully admit or deny it. A denial must fairly respond to the substance of the matter; and when good faith requires that a party qualify an answer or deny only a part of a matter, the answer must specify the part admitted and qualify or deny the rest.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 36(a)(4).
“The requesting party may move to determine the sufficiency of an answer or objection. Unless the court finds an objection justified, it must order that an answer be served. On finding that an answer does not comply with this rule, the court may order either that the matter is admitted or that an amended answer be served.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 36(a)(6).
In the instant case, the plaintiff “qualified his responses to make clear his position that the process afforded to him was not adequate because exculpatory evidence was withheld from him, thereby impeding his ability to defend against the accusations leveled against him in a meaningful manner. Given the gratuitous verbiage included in several of defendants’ requests, such a qualification is understandable, if not actually warranted.
“On the other hand, the plaintiff should not be allowed to avoid admissions as to the process which was provided to him because of his argument that this process was insufficient or otherwise deficient.”
Timothy M. Cohane v. National Collegiate Athletic Association, et al.; W.D.N.Y.;
04-CV-0181S(Sr), 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 41217; 3/26/12
Attorneys of Record: (for plaintiff: Sean O’Leary, LEAD ATTORNEY, O’Leary & O’Leary, Garden City, NY. (for defendants) William C. Odle, PRO HAC VICE, Jonathan Field Duncan, Linda J. Salfrank, LEADS ATTORNEYS, Spencer, Fane, Britt & Browne, Kansas City, MO; Lawrence J. Vilardo, Connors & Vilardo, LLP, Buffalo, NY; Patrick T. Morphy, Pattison, Sampson, Ginsberg & Griffin, P.C., Troy, NY.
