It appears Pat Fitzgerald's legal game plan is taking shape, as one attorney representing the newly fired Northwestern football coach has cited "two different major breach of contract claims" against the university.
Though he has yet to file a lawsuit against Northwestern, attorney Dan Webb told ESPN on Tuesday that in addition to Fitzgerald's employment contract, Northwestern violated an oral agreement reached between the coach, NU president Michael Schill and the university's general counsel last week. Northwestern on Friday announced a two-week, unpaid suspension for Fitzgerald, one of several responding actions after an investigation into hazing allegations found that the claims were "largely supported by the evidence," ESPN's Adam Rittenberg reported.
The investigation by attorney Maggie Hickey and the ArentFox Schiff firm did not find evidence that Fitzgerald or Northwestern's other coaches knew about the hazing activities but that they had opportunities to discover and report the behavior, according to Rittenberg.
Related: Northwestern Fires Pat Fitzgerald as Hazing Scandal Grows
"I cannot understand how you could terminate someone for cause when they [Northwestern officials] admit that their own lawyer does not have any evidence that my client ever knew anything at all, about any of the alleged hazing behavior," Webb said. "If I present that to a jury someday, a jury is going have a hard time believing that you can terminate someone for cause when they didn't know anything about [the incidents]."
Webb said Northwestern's general counsel, Stephanie Graham, told him that the school and Fitzgerald had agreed to the two-week suspension in advance of Friday's announcement. He added that Graham told Fitzgerald and his agent, Bryan Harlan, that "this is all there would be."
"Under Illinois law, an oral agreement is a contract," said Webb, a former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. "They had all the facts available to them. They thought the proper punishment was a two-week suspension without pay. That was their judgment. They made the decision. We agreed to go along with it, and we issued a statement to support them.
"So they've now breached an oral agreement and damaged his reputation enormously. And for no reason. This entire series of events by Northwestern, I cannot understand it."
As reported by Rittenberg, Webb contends Northwestern had "no new information" between the initial two-week suspension for Fitzgerald and his firing, noting that the hazing details reported Saturday by The Daily Northwestern mirrored what Hickey had been told during the investigation.
Northwestern has not informed Webb whether it is seeking to withhold the remaining salary on Fitzgerald's 10-year contract. That contract, which was signed in 2021, would have paid Fitzgerald more than $40 million.
Webb is open to a resolution outside of court, but he noted the damage to Fitzgerald's reputation that the firing has caused.
"There's a huge reputational issue that will be part of it," Webb told ESPN. "If we were to proceed with litigation, it would be a very large damage case because he can claim loss compensation for eight years left on his contract. And 10 years in the future, he can't replace it. So you're talking about a huge amount of money."
Northwestern announced Tuesday that Fitzgerald's entire staff would be retained for the 2023 season, as reported by CBS Sports.
