More on the Ave Maria Litigation

X-posted from my blog:

My former research assistant Sarah Prescott is now an attorney with the Deborah Gordon law firm in Michigan, an employment law boutique firm. Along with name partner Gordon, Presoctt just filed suit on behalf of three Ave Maria law school faculty members - Stephen Safranek, Edward Lyons and Phil Pucillo - against the law school, law school Dean Bernard Dobranski, and law school founder and chairman of the board Tom Monaghan. Sarah forwarded a copy of the complaint to me, which I've made available here. An early news report states:

The three professors, Stephen Safranek, Edward Lyons and Phil Pucillo, contend they were wrongfully discharged in violations of the state’s public policy law, whisteblowers’ law and their contracts. Safranek, Lyons and Pucillo also allege conflicts of interest between Monaghan, the law school and other organizations associated with Monaghan. Two of those nonprofits, Friends of Ave Maria School of Law and Ave Maria Foundation, were also named in the suit. AMSL began classes in 2000 in Ann Arbor, Mich. In February, the school announced it would move by 2009 to the new Ave Maria town in Collier County, a town co-founded by Monaghan and centered on Ave Maria University, a university in the Catholic tradition also founded by Monaghan, which began classes at its permanent campus in August. The law school has no official relationship with the university. The lawsuit was not unexpected given the recent controversy at the school. The move and its handling by the school’s administration has been at the center of faculty complaints about the school’s governance in the last two years. Last year, members of the faculty held a vote of “no confidence” in Dobranski and asked the board to remove him, but the board refused. The American Bar Association, which is the primary accreditation body for law schools, is investigating the school’s ability to attract and retain competent faculty members. The ABA also must give its approval for the school to move to Florida.

The news report also states that:

"This lawsuit is the latest debacle in the collapse of Ave Maria School of Law,” the professors’ attorney Deborah Gordon said in a statement posted on the Mirror of Justice, a Catholic legal theory blog.

I have't seen that statement on MoJ. I don't think anybody at MoJ wants to see Ave Maria collapse. To the contrary, our efforts have been aimed at reconciliation so that the law school can go forward in full compliance with the letter and spirit of applicable rules on academic governance.

Update: Gordon's statement in fact was posted at Brian Leiter's blog, not MOJ. The reporter just goofed, apparently.

Update2: Law Blog has more details on the allegations, some of which are quite troubling:

The 20-page complaint focuses the most on plaintiff Stephen Safranek, among the first professors to teach at the school, who reported to authorities his concerns about some Ave Maria staff members’ alleged obstruction of a criminal investigation and the legality of the school’s federal income-tax return, among other things. According to the complaint, on the tax return, the school represented former Supreme Court nominee and Ave professor Robert Bork “as being a full-time tenured faculty member…while paying him as an independent contractor through the Bork Law Firm, PC.” (The Law Blog has reached out to Bork.) The suit also says Safranek reported to authorities that certain staff at Ave Maria obstructed “a criminal investigation into a priest’s alleged involvement in sex offenses, including possession of child pornography.” Safranek was suspended after the school claimed he engaged in some trivial wrongs — from calling the dean a “liar” to his face — and some more serious ones, such as intimidating the dean’s assistant in the parking lot, a charge Safranek denies. Dobranski released this statement: “We are confident that the actions of the School of Law were both proper and legal and we look forward to the court coming to this same conclusion.”

Prior PB.com coverage:

Title	Excerpt	Date
Ave Maria Law School Sued by Faculty	My former research assistant Sarah Prescott is now an attorney with the Deborah Gordon law firm in Michigan, an employment law boutique firm. Along with name partner Gordon, Presoctt just filed suit on behalf of three Ave Maria law school faculty members - Stephen Safranek, Edward Lyons and Phil Pucillo…	10/18/07
A Reply to Michael Novak re Ave Maria Law	Michael Novak’s writings on economics, Catholic social thought, and theology were a major influence in my journey to Catholicism. So it saddens me to be swiped at by him in his critique of the MOJ statement on the situation at Ave Maria law school (HT-Reynolds): Recently, however, I came across…	10/03/07
Ave Maria Law Watch	As Walter Olson observes: Ave Maria School of Law keeps lurching from crisis to crisis. A blog called Fumare has been providing extensive coverage.	10/03/07
Ave Maria Law Watch	From the Detroit News:The alumni board of Ave Maria School of Law has issued a vote of no confidence in the leadership of the Catholic college, the latest attack on an administration that is increasingly the subject of negative Web logs, petitions and complaints. The alumni board last week called—for…	10/01/07
MOJ Joint Statement on the Situation at Ave Maria School of Law	From MOJ:We, the members of Mirror of Justice, are a group of Catholic and Christian law professors and former law professors. We wish to express our profound concern with the course of events at Ave María School of Law (“AMSL”). While we differ among ourselves in our religious and political…	09/12/07
Ave Maria Law	We the undersigned alumni and other members of the Ave Maria School of Law community past and present, hereby strongly oppose the actions of the school's administration and Board of Governors in ejecting Professors Stephen Safranek, Philip Pucillo, and Edward Lyons from our community. The administration and Board have disregarded…	08/27/07
The Meltdown at Ave Maria Law	Mark Sargent provides the full text of a letter signed by the bulk of the Ava Maria law school faculty concerning "the outrageous behavior of the Law School's administration." Mind-boggling stuff.	04/30/07