Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Round of Reubens

The faculty is calling for more input in the search for a new president for WVU. This comes after a no-confidence vote in the last candidate was effectively ignored before his inauguration.

“The faculty was greatly disturbed that the interim provost and interim dean of medicine were selected with essentially no faculty input. This is not consistent with Mike Garrison’s earlier statements of support for shared governance and openness,” said Jim Harner, the chair of the statistics department, in an e-mail.

Now faculty say they want input in selecting the interim president, other future presidents and the chance to change the composition of the BOG, which some said last year had too few academics and too many businesspeople and lawyers.
For the faculty to keep the high moral ground it may be time for them to make some noise about Sears and Lang getting fired since they are the ones that actually changed and approved grade changes. At least one change will come to the BOG as Robert Wells has decided not to return for a second term.
Wells, who is a long-time friend of the embattled president, says there is no evidence that Garrison did anything wrong, and does not want to serve on the WVU Board of Governors beyond the end of his current term.
If Wells, or any other BOG member, still doesn't understand the reasons for Garrison to go, and were unwilling to fire him if need be, then they will not be missed.

Speaking of the BOG, members are now being deposed in the ongoing RRod lawsuit. Steve Farmer and Parry Petroplus are being questioned about their knowledge of the presidential search outcome (Garrison) and the pressure they put on Rodriguez to sign his contract. Speaking of the Rodriguez case and Garrison resignation some have wondered how the two would overlap. I, for one, have believed since the beginning of the case that the idea of fraudulent inducement was a non-started for Rodriguez because of he has the burden to prove fraud on him. He must show by a preponderance of the evidence that despite having read the contract, having legal counsel, having an agent tell him not to sign, and having signed many contracts that he was "tricked" into signing the contract. Tough to believe. And now the West Virginia Supreme Court has re-affirmed the "four-corners" doctrine saying in a reality case that a Plaintiff that asked for a clause in the contract to be there was at fault for not reading before signing to see if it was there even though the Defendant promised to put the clause in the contract. The author of this article believes that the crux of the case is the buyout clause which is echoed by myself. The case should come down to WVU having to prove damages, since the burden for damage is on the Plaintiff (WVU). There is a $4 million buyout clause, but it cannot be a penalty so WVU must show that the damages were close to that amount in order to enforce the liquidated damages clause. That is why Ken Kendrick needs to be put on the stand or his quotes saying he and others were going to withhold millions because of Rodriguez leaving must be read into the record.

Finally, on a happy note it appears as though Kevin Pittsnogle has another child whith another great name.
But he's back in the Martinsburg area this summer with wife Heather, son Quincy and infant daughter Amyyah.
Actually, his son was named Kwynsie. Oh, and this pig is dumb.

1 comment:

Hamilton said...

I'm not an expert on WV law since I went to a national law school, but I can't understand how RRod's "oral promises" argument could work even if everything he said was true - seems to me to pretty clearly violate the statute of frauds in addition to everything else. Seems like summary judgment on that point, at least to me, although others might have a more indepth understanding of the actual case and applicable law than I do.