WACO, Texas (CN) — A Texas federal jury on Tuesday sided with a former Baylor University student who says the school was indifferent after she reported being beaten up by her football player ex-boyfriend, awarding her $270,000 in damages for her negligent response claim.
The jury of three men and five women deliberated for more than nine hours after listening to five days of testimony.
Dolores Lozano of Houston sued Baylor in 2016 on claims of negligence and violations of Title IX. In 2018 she added former athletic director Ian McCaw and former football head coach Art Briles as defendants, accusing them of gross negligence.
Lozano claims she was beaten three times by running back Devin Chafin in March and April 2014, during her senior year, and says the school’s deliberate indifference to her reports led to additional beatings. She also claims Chafin kicked her on the floor of a closet and strangled her into unconsciousness after she aborted a pregnancy.
Jurors also found in Lozano’s favor on her Title IX claim, but awarded no damages, and concluded Baylor was deliberately indifferent to her reports.
Lozano thanked her supporters immediately after the verdict was announced, tweeting “justice prevailed.”
Her story, along with several other female students’ stories of rape and abuse, surfaced in 2016, prompting Baylor regents to order an independent investigation by the law firm Pepper Hamilton. The firm concluded that administrators discouraged students from reporting abuse, and in one case even retaliated against a student.
Lozano’s attorney, Zeke Fortenberry of Dallas, accused coaches of knowing “not only of rapes, but of gang rapes” involving players who “were not reprimanded” at all, during his opening statement.
U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman tossed a gross negligence claims against Baylor, Briles and McCaw on the fifth day of trial, holding that, after hearing Briles and McCaw testify, “no reasonable jury” could conclude the defendants had been grossly negligent.
Briles told jurors he felt Baylor regents were being disloyal by firing him after the investigation. He testified that he was never given any Title IX training by Baylor and didn’t learn of Lozano’s claims until 2016, two years after the incidents she described having occurred.
McCaw testified that he quit after being sanctioned and placed on probation because he opposed the scapegoating of Briles. Regents used him to “take the fall” in the scandal and to mask years of issues with campus-wide assaults beyond the football team, he said..
“Baylor had a wide-ranging problem with interpersonal violence and sex assault,” McCaw told jurors. “The Board of Regents wanted to blame it all on one program and on one man: Art Briles.”
Lozano says her acrobatics and tumbling team coach LaPrise Harris-Williams asked her about her bruises after one of the alleged assaults and reported it to associate athletic director Nancy Post, who replied that “being involved with incidents like Lozano’s were not [Harris-Williams’] responsibility.”
McCaw refuted her claim: Post informed him of the assault in April 2014 and reported Lozano had sought counseling, medical attention and would file a report with Waco police, he testified. Baylor argued this shows the procedures in place were correctly followed by administrators and there was not deliberate indifference or negligence.
Chafin is not a party to the lawsuit and did not testify. Judge Pitman earlier denied Baylor’s motion to bring Chafin in as a third-party defendant. Chafin has steadfastly denied he ever assaulted Lozano and testified during a deposition that he acted in self-defense by grabbing her arms to stop being hit by Lozano.
Lozano testified on the second day of trial that she told then-running backs coach Jeff Lebby about the assaults and Chafin’s alleged drug abuse, claiming she saw him use marijuana, Oxycontin and mushrooms.
Baylor attorney Julie Springer, with Weisbart Springer in Austin, confronted Lozano on cross-examination on why she testified in a deposition in 2021 that she had only talked to Lebby about Chafin’s grades, yet was now claiming she told him about the assaults and drugs.
“That was what I could recall at that time,” Lozano replied.
“You only had one conversation with him and it was about academics,” Springer said.
Lebby is Briles’ son-in-law and the current offensive coordinator at the University of Oklahoma. He was forced to issue a public apology last month when Briles appeared on a sideline next to Lebby in University of Oklahoma clothing.
Springer told jurors that Baylor does apologize and accepts responsibility for the “bad things” that happened at the school, but as far as its liability, “this is not one of those cases.” She argued that Lozano was repeatedly urged to go to the police and to take advantage of school resources.
“Nobody from Baylor discouraged you from going to the police, right?” Springer asked.
“Yes,” Lozano replied.
Lozano has held public office since she was elected last year to be a justice of the peace in Harris County. Her term runs until 2027.
from Courthouse News
