By Eugene Egdorf, Esq.
When a former high school football coach filed a lawsuit against the Berkeley County (SC) School District, alleging that he was fired because he did not make his players “hit” more during football practices, it spoke volumes about the culture of high school athletics.
Plaintiff Jeffrey Cruce claimed that representatives of the school district made “false and defamatory statements” about his fitness for his profession to employees, students, volunteers, potential employers, and members of the community. Cruce had no record of any discipline for job performance issues, according to the complaint. He was fired because the principal “did not approve of Coach Cruce’s coaching philosophy, which included less hitting during practice.”
This is a remarkable case that serves as a reminder that, in many respects, we have a very flawed legal system. Our system is predicated on the ideal that we differentiate between wrong and right, protecting the innocent and those doing good, and punishing those causing harm. These issues are, of course, dominant these days when it comes to sports, particularly as it pertains to the evolving knowledge regarding concussions and head trauma. In the Cruce litigation, we likely have a situation where the wrong party will prevail, and for reasons that have nothing to do with promoting justice or the public good.
Just this week the pillars of our nation’s academia—the Ivy League—banned contact practices in football. Yet, in South Carolina, Cruce was fired from his job as a high school football coach for limiting contact in practices in order to promote player safety. Is there really anything more fundamentally important in American society than protecting our children? Apparently not in Berkeley County, South Carolina—if the principal does not care for you and your team goes 3-7.
The facts of the case as asserted in the complaint are quite damning. The principal appears to have a personal vendetta against Cruce. He may have even spread lies about the coach. And the principal appears to have a complete and total disregard for player safety because he believes it impacts wins and losses. Yet, incredibly, the school district will almost certainly prevail.
Why? First and foremost, South Carolina is an at-will employment state. Coach Cruce did not have an employment contract. He can be terminated for almost any reason, save something like age, gender, or racial discrimination (none of which has been alleged). His attorneys have tried to get around this by making a public policy argument. While I would certainly contend this is a strong argument in a debate setting, such arguments almost always fail in the courtroom.
Second, we have the issue of sovereign immunity. The case has been filed against a government institution—a school district. As such, there are legal restrictions on the types of cases that can be asserted and the damages that can be sought. We have seen this in other sports-related cases. For example, Mike Leach was unable to proceed with a breach of contract claim against Texas Tech for his termination. In Florida, the Darling and Plancher sickle-cell death lawsuits were severely limited because the claims were against state universities. In the Abram sickle-cell case, Mississippi law may well have required dismissal because case law had held that high school and college football were fundamental and important government functions.
In fact, after lack of education and frankly complete stubbornness and ignorance of the science, the biggest impediment to promoting player safety for our young people is sovereign immunity. One of the great benefits of our tort system is that it serves as a deterrent to wrongful conduct. As I have written about and argued previously, in the case of our public institutions, the deterrent is either weak or nonexistent because of this lack of deterrent. This must be changed. And now.
Eugene Egdorf is a Houston, Texas-based attorney at Williams Kherkker, who wrote “Rigged Game: The Florida Supreme Court’s Decision in Plancher and the Abuse of Sovereign Immunity in Sports Law” for the July 2015 issue of Concussion Litigation Reporter.
