Pat Fitzgerald's $130M Gridiron Grievances Survive Northwestern Motion

EVANSTON, IL — A Cook County judge denied Northwestern University's motion to dismiss its fired football coach's $130 million lawsuit, with the robed referee rejecting each of the university attorneys' attempts to avoid trial on allegations of wrongful termination in connection with last year's hazing scandal.

Pat Fitzgerald's claims of breach of oral and employment contract, intentional infliction of emotional distress, defamation, false light and tortious interference with business expectancy merit a trial, according to Tuesday's ruling from Cook County Circuit Judge Daniel Kubasiak.

The ruling keeps the high-profile legal showdown between the Wildcats coach of 17 years and his alma mater on track for an April 2025 trial — unless they settle it first.

Fitzgerald signed a 10-year contract extension in 2021 and claims to be owed $68 million of it, plus another $62 million in future lost income.

The university's hazing scandal kicked off shortly after the tenure of University President Michael Schill with a complaint to administrations in November 2022.

That prompted an internal university investigation and, last July, a slap on the wrist for Fitzgerald — a two-week suspension during the off-season.

But Schill changed his tune after the Daily Northwestern the next day published detailed allegations from a former player of sexualized hazing rituals.

“Coach Fitzgerald is not only responsible for what happens within the program, but also must take great care to uphold our institutional commitment to the student experience and our priority to ensure all students — undergraduate and graduate — can thrive,” Schill wrote in a follow-up statement.

"Clearly, he failed to uphold that commitment, and I failed to sufficiently consider that failure in levying a sanction."

Following Fitzgerald's firing, more than a dozen lawsuits have been filed across multiple sports programs at Northwestern — the only private school in the Big Ten Conference — alleging sexual abuse, racist comments, race-based assaults and more.

Three days after the football coach was fired, the university also fired baseball coach Jim Foster after a single season. It faces another suit from other former coaches that say they were fired after reporting him to administrators.

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Kubasiak's ruling Tuesday found that Fitzgerald's attorney, Dan Webb, had sufficiently pleaded their case that Fitzgerald had been fired illegally.

"If there was ever an athletic coach at Northwestern University that should have not been terminated, it's Coach Fitzgerald," Webb said, announcing the suit last year.

Webb has previously represented former 2016 Donald Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, controversial Ukrainian businessman Dmitry Firtash and the Fox News Channel in the defamation case that the network wound up paying a $787 million to resolve.

"Was there any real hazing that took place at Northwestern? I doubt it," Webb said on Thursday, characterizing the allegations of hazing as "horseplay."

The judge in Fitzgerald's case has encouraged both parties to settle the litigation, and his recent ruling keeps the stakes high.

“We remain confident that the university acted appropriately in terminating coach Fitzgerald and we will vigorously defend our position in court,” a university spokesperson said in a statement after the university's motion to dismiss was denied.

Fitzgerald's attorneys, for their part, said actions by university officials had imposed "terrible, immeasurable costs to coach Fitzgerald, his family and his career."

Read more: Judge Blocks Pat Fitzgerald Request To Move Up Northwestern Trial Date