The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court ruled 6-1 in favor of State Senator Jake Corman in his battle with the NCAA over keeping the 60 million dollar fine in PA. But as is detailed here and here the majority opinion went a step further and called into question the validity of the entire consent decree. They blasted both the NCAA for putting forth the consent decree and the board's terrible judgement in accepting such a decree in violation of their fiduciary responsibility to the university.
This quote, remarkably, is from the dissenting opinion but is particularly pointed:
"The majority appears to arrive at this outcome because it is bewildered, as I am, by how the Board of Trustees of PSU could have approved or allowed to be executed a ‘Consent Decree’ involving the expenditure of $60 million of PSU funds when the Consent Decree specifically states that the matter would ‘ordinarily not be actionable by the NCAA."
I've thought for a long time that the NCAA fighting to pull the money from the fine out of the state of PA was one of the NCAA's more self destructive positions regarding the sanctions. I always figured at some point they would just give in and let the state distribute it as they see fit. Now I am not sure if it matters. I believe the Corbett lawsuit mostly failed due to the inability to establish standing. The Paterno lawsuit also was running into trouble. However the Paterno suit solved that problem by involving Penn State as a defendent in the suit.
This quote from Senator Corman then has me puzzled:
"I’ve always been uncomfortable with the way the NCAA handed this consent decree on Penn State and the process they went through to do it," Corman said. "Now that (the court) brought Penn State into the case and that they’re not sure that the whole consent decree is valid or constitutional, that’s an area that wasn’t part of our original lawsuit but clearly an area we want to explore now that the court has opened the possibility to do so."
What does expanding the lawsuit mean? Is the judge compelling Penn State to become a party to the lawsuit in suing the NCAA or is it that the state of Pennsylvania is suing Penn State University in addition to the NCAA as the Paternos are doing? Would this solve the standing problem that Corbett had? Lawyers of BSD, what does it all mean?
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