Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Bubkes for the Faux Indian Fraud
Judge Larry Naves of the Denver District Court today continued the diminishment of the Ward Churchill victory in court two months ago by refusing to reinstate him to his teaching position at CU or to award him any front pay for the years he has been unemployed. Take that, and a dollar, you pompous, fat, fatuous fraud. And he does not even get the dollar. See paragraph 69 of the Order. The University and the Regents are immune from suit.
Judge Naves is an old acquaintance; his son and mine went to the same school, and I have appeared in front of him a few times over the years. The judge has a lot of discretion (power) here to fashion the appropriate equitable remedy to the unjust firing and it would take a miracle to overturn this decision. Even sweeter is the idea that Churchill was largely hoist with his own petard (h/t PirateBallerina). See paragraphs 101, 107, 108 and 119 of the Order.
What's left is the determination of costs and attorney fees of Churchill's effective attorney David Lane. I have no idea what the immunity ruling will do to that issue. In the normal order of things, even the nominal damages winner gets his or her costs and attorney fees paid in these sort of suits. Since CU hired the fraud without a PhD in the first place, and made him a department head despite the fact that his "scholarship" was full of lies, plagiarism and other academic misconduct, I think they should take the financial hit for this otherwise worthless litigation.
Justice in an imperfect world.
UPDATE: After a few hours of thought, I now think the finding of quasi-judicial immunity ends Churchill's quest for costs and attorney fees. He lost. Indeed, although the Order does not mention a C.R.C.P. 12 (b)(5) motion, the finding of immunity might well entitle the University and Regents to their attorney fees under Section 13-17-201, C.R.S.
UPDATE 2: I read the Motion for Judgment as a Matter of Law which propounded the successful issue of quasi-judicial immunity. It was written after the trial and did not mention Rule 12 (b). On the other hand, the issue was brought up before trial and preserved by stipulation. Longer odds now against an award of CU's attorney fees under 13-17-201. CU might not even try.
Labels: Ward Churchill
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 2:06 PM 
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Rog,
My only question is this. Did the judge make a Rule 12 determination? If so, it will be Ward Churchill paying attys fees. Also, if this were a jurisdictional issue, why wasn't it ruled on b/f the lengthy and expensive trial. If the board is protected by the GIA, the judge should have ruled pretrial and Churchill could have pursued an appeal from there.
T
My only question is this. Did the judge make a Rule 12 determination? If so, it will be Ward Churchill paying attys fees. Also, if this were a jurisdictional issue, why wasn't it ruled on b/f the lengthy and expensive trial. If the board is protected by the GIA, the judge should have ruled pretrial and Churchill could have pursued an appeal from there.
T
# posted by 
: 9:25 AM
: 9:25 AM
I actually do think Judge Naves ruled on a rule 12 (b) motion that did not call itself that. I'm not being critical of Pat O'Rourke. Churchill could argue persuasively that it was a Motion for JNOV. I disagree that the GIA makes any difference, as Rule 12 (b) does not specifically mention governmental immunity but no subject matter jurisdiction (which you can reach with immunity of any kind). Or perhaps my memory is faulty here. You have Swieckowski and I have Curtis as a basis of personal knowledge.
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