An attorney for former Baylor University fraternity president Jacob Anderson says he is entitled to know the amount of lawsuit settlements reached with a woman who alleges Anderson raped her at an off-campus house known as the "Phi Delt Ranch" in 2016.
The woman, identified in the suit as "Donna Doe" settled her lawsuit with Phi Delta Theta, with the owner of the home in the 2600 block of South Third Street and with three former fraternity members in January.
One of the woman's attorneys, Jim Dunnam, of Waco, told 414th State District Judge Vicki Menard during a hearing Thursday that he and co-counsel Chad Dunn have reached confidential settlements with 10 defendants and have five more agreements with former fraternity officers and members ironed out and waiting to be signed.
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That leaves a total of six defendants remaining in the lawsuit, including Anderson, whose high-profile criminal case drew national attention while Baylor was in the midst of a sexual assault scandal and recently had announced attorneys hired by the university to investigate its handling of sexual assault reports found fundamental failures, including a lack of compliance with Title IX provisions.
Baylor suspended the fraternity after the allegations came to light. Anderson's case, plus the ongoing scandal spawned numerous lawsuits against the school and an NCAA investigation and resulted in the firing of Baylor football coach Art Briles and the removal of Kenneth Starr as president.
Anderson's attorney in the civil lawsuit, Michael Minton, of Fort Worth, asked Menard to compel Dunnam and Dunn to supplement ongoing discovery materials with dollar amounts from those defendants who have settled with Donna Doe, which Minton referred to as the lawsuit's "low-hanging fruit."
Minton argued that civil procedure rules and case law are clear that he is entitled to the settlement amounts and charged "pure gamesmanship" by the plaintiffs' attorneys as the only reason they are withholding the agreement totals.
"Mr. Dunnam says, 'I just don't want to do it,' Minton told the judge via teleconference. "Well, 'I just don't want to do it' doesn't really cut it. … We are entitled to the whole enchilada. We are entitled to know what money is being paid in settlement of these cases."
Dunnam and Dunn did not disagree. However, they argued that now is not the appropriate time to disclose them and said it could interfere with ongoing settlement discussions in the remaining cases.
Dunn asked the judge to wait until a trial schedule is set and after all settlements that are going to be reached have been approved before ordering the plaintiffs to disclose the terms of the confidential settlements.
Minton said he needs the information now to assess risks in his case and to determine the amount of potential settlement credit for which he might be entitled. In multi-defendant civil cases, if a jury awards a verdict in favor of the plaintiff, the defendant or defendants on trial can be allowed to deduct the amounts of co-defendants' pretrial settlements from the jury award against them.
The judge took the matter under advisement and asked attorneys on both sides to send her relevant case law to review.
Anderson was arrested in March 2016 and faced a four-count sexual assault indictment. He ultimately accepted a plea bargain from the district attorney’s office, which recommended he be placed on deferred probation for three years in exchange for his no contest plea to a reduced charge of unlawful restraint. As part of the plea agreement, prosecutors dropped the four counts of sexual assault, and Anderson did not have to register as a sex offender or serve any time behind bars.
A barrage of protests came flooding into the district attorney’s office and Judge Ralph Strother, who accepted the agreement. Before Anderson’s hearing, the judge’s office was bombarded with petitions, emails, letters and calls from people all over the country who urged him to reject the plea bargain and bring Anderson to trial.
Doe and her family wrote scathing emails to the judge, saying the DA’s office, then under District Attorney Abel Reyna, broke promises to them regarding her fight for justice and imploring him to reject the plea agreement.
Later, she told the judge in a victim-impact statement that she was devastated by the plea bargain and his decision to accept it.
“When I was completely unconscious, he dumped me face down in the dirt and left me there to die,” she said. “He had taken what he wanted, had proven his power over my body. He then walked home and went to bed without a second thought to the ravaged, half-dead woman he had left behind.”
Days later, a student at the University of Texas at Dallas who said she was outraged Anderson enrolled there when he left Baylor, sponsored an online petition seeking Anderson’s dismissal from school. In response, school officials told Anderson, who was set to graduate with a finance degree, that he could not attend graduation ceremonies, return to campus or attend graduate school there.