Florida's Lynn University Settles With Student Police Say Was Falsely Accused Of Sexual Assault

A male Lynn University student has settled with the Florida school after he was suspended for a year over a sexual assault accusation local police ultimately determined was “unfounded.”

The details of the settlement, like so many in such cases, are confidential. The student, identified in court documents simply as John Doe, filed his lawsuit against the university on May 27, 2016. Lynn attempted to get the lawsuit dismissed, but Judge Robin Rosenberg denied the university’s motion, stating that the student “sufficiently alleged causal connection between allegedly erroneous outcome in disciplinary proceedings and gender bias on part of university.” The judge also accepted his breach of contract claim.

Lynn then filed a motion for summary judgment, asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit without a jury trial, which had been scheduled to start on May 30, 2017—one year after the original complaint was filed. Doe filed opposition evidence and legal memoranda asking the court to deny Lynn’s motion, his attorney, Angel Castillo, told The Federalist. A hearing on the school’s motion was scheduled for March 14, 2017. One day before the hearing was scheduled, the court was notified that both parties had reached a confidential settlement. On March 17, the parties filed a stipulation stating the lawsuit would be dismissed and each side would be responsible for their own attorney’s fees.

“This was a very challenging case involving a still-developing area of the law, discrimination under Title IX, and we are pleased that the parties were able to reach an out-of-court resolution that was satisfactory to everyone involved,” Castillo told The Federalist.
What Led to the Suit

Doe met his accuser at a dorm party in September 2015. The two, according to Doe’s lawsuit, had sex around 8:30 p.m. that night. His accuser (not named because the accused isn’t) claimed she was too drunk to consent. Doe argued that she “showed no signs of being intoxicated.”

Police concurred after viewing campus video surveillance that showed the accuser right before and after her encounter with Doe, walking normally and talking to friends. Within 30 minutes of her encounter with Doe, she was seen holding two cups of liquid from the dining hall, and balancing on one foot and pushing the elevator door button with the other. Footage from just after the encounter showed the...Read More HERE