Ball State has agreed to settle a federal lawsuit filed by a former coach to avoid the expense of trial even though the school expected to win, a spokesman said.
Former women's tennis coach Kathy Bull agreed to drop the lawsuit last week in exchange for a package of $710,000. A news release by one of Bull's lawyers, Baine Kerr, said the settlement included $550,000 in cash and health benefits for life.
"The university believes its defense was strong and it would have prevailed at trial," Tony Proudfoot, Ball State's associate vice president of marketing and communications, told the Star Press.
"However, the defense would have required a significant investment of time, expense and effort," Proudfoot continued. "Ball State and its insurance carrier, Chartis Insurance, determined that a negotiated settlement would enable all parties to move forward without protracted legal proceedings."
A trial date of Nov. 5 was earlier set for the case in the U.S. District Court of Indianapolis, with a pretrial conference set for Oct. 17. The date was postponed from its original court date of April 9.
Both sides met on June 12 to discuss a settlement before reaching an agreement Tuesday.
Bull's attorneys did not respond to requests for comment from the Ball State Daily News.
The former coach of 21 years was put on paid, non-disciplinary administrative leave on Oct. 20, 2009, after Ball State self-reported NCAA violations that the women's tennis program had made under Bull.
Bull was eventually fired in March 2010. Ball State said at the time, the firing was the result of multiple NCAA violations that occurred.
Within a month, Bull's attorney Marisa Pollick confirmed that her client was planning to file a wrongful termination lawsuit.
Pollick argued that Bull was fired for speaking out about Ball State's conduct with Title IX, the federal law that assures equal athletic opportunity for men and women.
The school had been under investigation by the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights for several years prior to Bull's firing. That investigation is ongoing.
"They wanted to get rid of Kathy because she was an advocate of Title IX in a department that was riddled with problems," Pollick told the Daily News in 2010.
Bull filed suit against Ball State in July 2010, naming the Board of Trustees, President Jo Ann Gora, former Athletic Director Tom Collins and Pat Quinn, current associate athletic director.
By December 2011, an Indiana federal judge dismissed several of Bull's claims prior to trial; however, her primary claim that Ball State was liable for her termination under Title IX, due to her outspoken opinions on the school's conduct with the law, was not dismissed.
With Bull's settlement included, Ball State will have paid $1.61 million since 2008 to coaches who have been fired or left the university, the Star Press reported.
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