A federal judge from the District of Colorado has ruled that athletic department officials at the University of Colorado (CU), who were informed that one of their assistant football coaches had been accused of domestic violence, were not obligated to follow CU policies in the handling of the investigation since the alleged victim of the violence was not an employee of the university.
Plaintiff Pamela Fine filed a lawsuit in Denver last September against former assistant coach Joe Tumpkin, alleging assault, battery, false imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
She also named head football coach Mike MacIntyre, Athletic Director Rick George, Chancellor Phil DiStefano, and UC President Bruce Benson for their handling of allegations. Specifically, she accused them of inflicting “physical, psychological and verbal abuse.” According to the plaintiff, Fine told MacIntyre on Dec. 9, 2016, that she had been victimized by Tumpkin, her boyfriend and a CU secondary coach, over a two-year period.
MacIntyre then allegedly informed George about the allegations, and George informed the chancellor. Further inciting the plaintiff, MacIntyre allegedly gave Tumpkin the contact information for defense attorney Jon Banashek, whom Tumpkin eventually retained.
After the student newspaper reported in January 2017 that Fine had sought a restraining order against the coach, others at CU began looking into the actions and eventually commissioned a report from an outside agency. Its conclusions led to DiStefano receiving a 10-day suspension, while George and MacIntyre were each required to pay $100,000 in fines to a domestic violence organization.
The judge was disappointed in the actions of the defendants, noting that he was “concerned … about the apparent reluctance of the university and its senior athletic staff to take substantial steps to address (Fine’s) allegations until they were publicly reported.
“The court’s concerns are redoubled given the context of the emerging national conversation exposing wrongdoers (usually, but not always, male) who use positions of power to dominate and control subordinate individuals (usually, but not always, female),” he wrote. “Nonetheless, the reality is that courts of law intentionally move more slowly than the court of public opinion.”
Thus, the defendants’ “alleged failure to follow the university’s rules and policies did not increase the risk of harm to (Fine) given that, as someone with no affiliation with or connection to the university, she was not within the group of individuals that the policies were designed to protect.”
CU issued a statement on the ruling, which read: “We believe that Judge Martinez correctly recognized our employees did not violate the law and that there was no legal basis for the claims against them. In the past year and a half, we have advanced our commitment to preventing sexual misconduct, improved our policies and trainings and promoted a culture that respects and values all of our students, faculty and staff.”
