A legal battle between Northwestern and its former head football coach could be coming down the pike after it was revealed that Pat Fitzgerald was fired for cause.
Fitzgerald’s attorney, Dan Webb, told ESPN that he was informed by the university’s general counsel that Fitzgerald’s termination had been for cause after he was let go by Northwestern on Monday.
The dismissal came after new allegations emerged in a weekend report from The Daily Northwestern — the school’s student newspaper — about details surrounding alleged incidents of hazing inside the football program.
The university’s independent investigation, which concluded prior to the new report, found that hazing claims were “largely supported by the evidence.”
However, in a statement released by university president Michael Schill announcing Fitzgerald’s firing, Schill said that the investigation never found evidence that Fitzgerald was aware of the hazing.
That’s where part of Webb’s issues lie with how the situation was handled.
“I cannot understand how you could terminate someone for cause when they [Northwestern] admit that their own lawyer does not have any evidence that my client ever knew anything at all, about any of the alleged hazing behavior,” Webb told ESPN.
“If I present that to a jury someday, a jury is going have a hard time believing that you can terminate someone for cause when they didn’t know anything about [the incidents].”
Webb told the outlet that he was still researching legal strategies and no lawsuit has been filed
But Webb believes Northwestern had committed two “major” breaches of contract.
The attorney contends that the school breached Fitzgerald’s employment contract and that it breached a verbal agreement about the punishment Fitzgerald was going to receive over the hazing allegations.
University general counsel Stephanie Graham, according to Webb, had told Fitzgerald and his agent, Bryan Harlan, that the two-week suspension he was given on Friday would be all the punishment he’d receive.
“Under Illinois law, an oral agreement is a contract,” Webb said. “They had all the facts available to them. They thought the proper punishment was a two-week suspension without pay. That was their judgment. They made the decision. We agreed to go along with it, and we issued a statement to support them.
“So, they’ve now breached an oral agreement and damaged his reputation enormously. And for no reason. This entire series of events by Northwestern, I cannot understand it.”
Northwestern has not said if it would hold out on paying the remaining salary that had been left on the 10-year contract Fitzgerald signed in 2021.
There was no new information that came out in the reporting over the weekend that wasn’t discovered during the investigation, Webb said.
On Sunday, Fitzgerald hired Webb to represent him after the dismissal.
“Last Friday, Northwestern and I came to a mutual agreement regarding the appropriate resolution following the thorough investigation conducted by [attorney Maggie Hickey,” the former coach said in a statement. “This agreement stipulated a two-week suspension.
“Therefore I was surprised when I learned that the president of Northwestern unilaterally revoked our agreement without any prior notification and subsequently terminated my employment.”
Fitzgerald’s attorney added Tuesday that he would be open to a resolution outside of court, but contended that “reputational” damage had been done to Fitzgerald.
Webb added a case would have a “huge reputational issue” to it, and that could result in “a very large damage case.”
One day after Fitzgerald’s firing it was revealed that Northwestern’s baseball coach, Jim Foster, is now under fire after a university investigation found evidence that the first-year head coach “engaged in bullying and abusive behavior,” the Chicago Tribune reported.
