North Carolina State University is urging a federal judge to reject consolidation of two lawsuits from former student-athletes. Both allege they were victims of sexual misconduct from NCSU’s former sports medicine director.
Lawyers for former soccer player Benjamin Locke and another athlete identified as John Doe 2 have asked US District Judge Louise Wood Flanagan to combine their cases. The 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals issued rulings earlier this year allowing both former students to proceed with their lawsuits against NC State.
“The similarities between Locke and Doe 2 are limited to the following: two former NC State student-athletes allege Title IX violations after being subjected to misconduct by the same former NC State employee,” the university’s private lawyers wrote in a court filing Monday. “The substantial differences in case-specific facts — including the timeframes, circumstances, frequency, and extent of the alleged misconduct providing the backdrop for each plaintiff’s claim for hostile educational environment and deliberate indifference — render consolidation improper.”
Locke attended NCSU from 2015 to 2017. He alleges “inappropriate conduct” from sports medicine director Robert Murphy, including “watching Locke take a shower following a surgical procedure and inappropriate touching when Murphy was administering treatment for athletic injuries,” according to the court filing.
Five years later, Locke reported the conduct to NCSU campus police. Within a month, the university suspended Murphy. By June 2022, Locke learned that Murphy no longer worked at NCSU. Locke filed his federal lawsuit in August 2022.
Doe attended NC State in 2020-21. “Doe alleges that in 2021 he was experiencing pain and thus sought treatment from Murphy on two occasions, during which Murphy touched Doe’s genitals,” university lawyers wrote. “Doe does not allege that he reported Murphy’s conduct to anyone. Doe alleges it was after reading the Locke complaint in 2022 that he learned that NC State’s head soccer coach, the senior associate athletic director, and two other assistant coaches knew about Murphy’s conduct since early 2016 and did not immediately report it to Title IX staff,” according to NCSU’s court filing.
The Doe lawsuit arrived in April 2023.
“In Locke and Doe 2, despite their similarities, ‘each [plaintiff]’s claim is based upon [his] unique facts and circumstances and depend[s] upon separate evidence pertaining to each of them,’” the NCSU court filing argued. “Locke’s allegations of hostile educational environment and deliberate indifference take place between 2015 and 2017; Doe’s allegations of hostile educational environment and deliberate indifference take place in 2020 and 2021, years after Locke transferred to a different institution.”
Their Title IX claims “require different analyses,” NCSU’s lawyers wrote. Locke is suing both the university and Murphy, while Doe’s complaint targets NC State alone.
“A consolidated trial for Locke and Doe 2 would be unfairly prejudicial to NC State,” the university’s court filing argued. “When presented with a multi-plaintiff case, jurors more readily assume a defendant’s liability due to the fact that multiple plaintiffs are asserting similar claims.”
“Given the varied factual underpinnings of Locke’s and Doe’s respective claims for hostile educational environment and deliberate indifference, the risk of jury confusion here is high,” NCSU lawyers wrote. “The jury will be forced to keep separate different evidence and testimony concerning different time periods. These concerns are further accentuated by the nature of the claims themselves. ‘Evidence is unfairly prejudicial if “it provokes an emotional response in the jury or otherwise tends to affect adversely the jury’s attitude toward the defendant wholly apart from its judgment’ as to liability.”’”
“While the Locke and Doe 2 matters share similarities, they also present important distinctions,” the court filing explained. “Yet the facts from one case may be imputed onto the other by a jury who is emotionally charged by claims of sexual misconduct. That risk is further heightened by the fact that Murphy, the alleged assailant in both complaints, is a party to one case (Locke) but not to the other (Doe 2).”
NCSU also cited the possibility that either lawsuit could be amended. Plus both suits have motions for Flanagan to resolve before the cases could head to trial.
