Houston Nutt filed a lawsuit against Ole Miss on Wednesday. What are the claims of the suit, and how legitimate is Nutt’s case?
On July 12, Houston Nutt filed a lawsuit in the U.S district court in Oxford against his former employer. Nutt is claiming that Ole Miss defamed him by blaming the majority of the school’s alleged NCAA offenses on him.
There was certainly a lot of enmity surrounding Nutt’s departure from Oxford. After a pair of 9-4 seasons and Cotton Bowl victories in 2008 and 2009, Nutt simply couldn’t sustain the momentum. Ole Miss went 6-18 in his final two years. Then Houston Nutt resigned at the end of the 2011 season.
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The deal stipulated that both sides were to refrain from defaming the other. As an analyst with CBS Sports, Nutt must temper his critiques when it comes time to talk about the Rebels. The lawsuit argues that the university did not afford him the same courtesy, in breach of their negotiated buyout.
But before we weigh an opinion on this matter, let’s actually get to the heart of the lawsuit. You can read in full here, but most people won’t have time to do that. So here are some of the structural questions that can help you navigate the waters.
What is the suit specifically claiming?
- Breach of contract
- Breach of duty of good faith and fair dealing
Houston Nutt and Ole Miss signed a severance agreement on November 26, 2011. That agreement ending his time as the Rebels head coach. The section most relevant to the current lawsuit is Section 8. That section of the agreement prohibits Ole Miss from saying anything about Nutt “that may damage or harm his reputation as a football coach.”
As is filed later in the lawsuit, the school and its employees and representatives were “contractually prohibited from making any statement whatsoever, truthful or not, that may damage or harm Coach Nutt’s reputation.” The suit alleges that Ole Miss flouted this clause in order to downplay culpability in the ongoing NCAA investigation of the school.
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How did Ole Miss allegedly breach the severance agreement?
The lawsuit lists dozens of specific allegations against many prominent Ole Miss figures. Featured among those individuals are athletic director Ross Bjork, school chancellor Jeffrey Vitter, and current head coach Hugh Freeze. The suit claims that the school knowingly spread false information about the NCAA’s notice of allegations.
It alleges the false information was spread in a variety of ways. Recruits were told that the NCAA investigation regarded only past misconduct. Ole Miss worked to focus the media narrative around the investigation on Nutt. This occurred even as the NCAA’s notice exonerated Nutt of guilt in many of the alleged cases. The suit offers multiple cases where Ole Miss press releases and interviews explicitly directed this narrative.
What does Houston Nutt hope to get out of this lawsuit?
Nutt is claiming damages under Mississippi law. These damages include lost wages and attorneys’ fees. Furthermore, Nutt is also claiming emotional distress, embarrassment, and punitive damages. It is hard to quantify emotional distress or embarrassment, and punitive damages are always a sticky subject that usually goes through several rounds of appeals. Houston Nutt goes into no details beyond that in terms of a dollar figure he seeks.
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What we do know, though, is that Houston Nutt made $2.7 million in his final year at Ole Miss. Nutt jumped right into the CBS Sports Network studio in 2012. Nutt wasn’t unemployed for long. But, when what are surely millions in attorneys’ fees are tacked on, we are not talking about a small amount of money here.
What should we take away from this lawsuit?
The key to the entire lawsuit is whether or not what Ole Miss was saying about Houston Nutt impeded his return to the coaching ranks. He has been working for CBS, and the question becomes whether he has tried to get back into coaching. Did this alleged Rebels smear campaign keep other schools from calling Nutt?
A few months ago, this could have passed if Nutt had received a public apology from the school. When that seemed like it would never materialize Nutt assessed his options. A defamation suit was in the works at least as early as six weeks ago. Forget the wins and losses. The ultimate question, here, comes down to whether Nutt was a negligent and disreputable coach.
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In the end, the NCAA found little to pin on Houston Nutt in its extensive list of allegations against Ole Miss. The school was happy to point its fingers, though, at the man who preceded Hugh Freeze. Because Ole Miss knew Nutt was not nearly as culpable as they claimed, the suit was inevitable.