The NCAA is currently playing defense in a lawsuit brought by the estate of the late Joe Paterno, former head coach of Penn State University’s football team. The lawsuit alleges that the NCAA failed to adequately deny defamation, along with other claims in the aftermath of the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal.
The estate now argues that the NCAA’s answer failed to include sufficiently specific denials of the estate’s allegations, thus the estate should be granted final judgment. The NCAA responded, claiming that “[d]espite abundant opportunity, plaintiffs never raised the answer’s purported lack of specificity with the NCAA or requested an amendment to provide more detail, but instead simply spring a motion asking for final judgment … Plaintiffs know the NCAA’s position on the issues in this case. They do not want more detail or to search for the truth. They want this court to relieve them of the burden of trying to prove their claims – which they know they cannot do.”
Along with the Paterno family, the NCAA is also being sued by former coaches and university trustees, all claiming that the NCAA wrongfully imposed sanctions against the Penn State football program when the Sandusky issue arose out of criminal conduct that was unrelated to actual athletic competition.