Costly, lengthy, invasive: What to expect if Jeremy Pruitt, ex-Vols coach, sues Tennessee

If Tennessee’s standoff with fired football coach Jeremy Pruitt over his $12.6 million buyout ends up in court, each side can expect a lengthy, expensive process, and they should prepare for their adversary to dig as deep into their closet as a judge will allow.

“You have to look at the overriding cost of this, the fact that it’s in the public domain … and the fact that it doesn’t do anybody’s names any good,” said Martin Greenberg, a sports lawyer and law professor at Marquette University who has been called by three coaches as an expert witness in lawsuits.

A lawsuit is a certainty if Tennessee doesn’t reach a settlement with its former coach, Pruitt’s lawyer Michael Lyons told the USA TODAY Network this week.

Tennessee has taken a hard-line no-pay approach since firing Pruitt for cause Jan. 18. Additionally, two of Pruitt's assistants and seven other football staff members were fired for cause. UT officials believe the for-cause firing is justified under Pruitt's contract because they say Pruitt's staff committed repeated and serious NCAA violations and Pruitt failed to monitor his staff and promote compliance.

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Lyons, in an Oct. 7 letter to UT’s general counsel Ryan Stinnett, set an Oct. 29 deadline for the university to settle with is client. If it doesn’t, he’s pledged a lawsuit that Lyons wrote will embarrass the university and unmask widespread rule-breaking behavior stretching above and beyond Pruitt’s football program, including high-ranking administrators, and impermissible booster involvement in recruiting with multiple Vols athletics programs.

Stinnett fired back in a letter to Lyons on Monday, writing that UT has no plans to settle and will not be intimidated by “vague and unsupported allegations of other violations.” Stinnett vowed to mount “a vigorous defense” if Pruitt sues.

“There’s no shortage of threats of exposing the university, but Tennessee wants to put their heels in. If they’re taking that standpoint, they must feel pretty solid about their defenses,” said Dan Lust, a sports and entertainment lawyer for the Geragos & Geragos law firm in New York and a sports law professor at New York Law School.

What to make of Michael Lyons’ letter to Tennessee?

Lyons’ feverish attempts to procure a settlement for Pruitt are to be expected.

“Most lawyers are inclined to try to settle a case pre-suit from an economic standpoint,” Lust said. “When you put a case into suit, there’s a number of costs.”

Greenberg said Lyons’ letter to UT equates to “a complicity war” and is a standard tactic used by lawyers in advance of a lawsuit.

“In other words, we’re going to show that you are as much of a problem as the coach was, if you can show the coach violated his contract,” Greenberg said about Lyons’ apparent strategy. “It’s a warning, and what he’s basically saying, in so many words, is: It’s time to go behind closed doors, put together a separation agreement with the appropriate nondisclosures and everybody goes their separate ways.”

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Lyons named several people in his letter, including former Athletics Director Phillip Fulmer, men's basketball coach Rick Barnes and Chancellor Donde Plowman, and hints of wrongdoing, but his allegations didn’t have any meat on the bone and weren’t supported by evidence.

Lyons told the USA TODAY Network that he didn’t want to “spoil the surprise” of what he has in store for Tennessee by revealing further details in his letter.

Barnes and Fulmer denied any wrongdoing in statements to ESPN.

Lust described Lyons’ letter as “a lot of grandstanding.” If Lyons has a strong hand, it’s time to start showing his cards, Lust said.

“It looks like he’s going scorched earth, and maybe that will get him some money, but I would think this would be the time, if he did have it, to put some substantive elements in that letter, but it wasn’t there,” Lust said.

Tennessee must evaluate if court battle with Jeremy Pruitt is worth it

Although it wouldn’t be a good look for Tennessee if Lyons can show complicity within UT’s administration, and it could lead to further issues with the NCAA, Greenberg and Lust said that alone wouldn’t take Pruitt off the hook for his conduct or prove that UT was not justified in firing him for cause.

“I don’t think it necessarily matters what Fulmer did or didn’t know, as long as there were employees underneath Pruitt running wild,” Lust said.

Pruitt’s contract included 31 fire-for-cause provisions, six of which were cited in his termination letter.

Plowman called the extent of malfeasance within the football program "stunning" based on the number of people involved and number of incidents. The university has not publicly provided any evidence or details of the alleged NCAA violations, and the NCAA investigation is ongoing.

In Pruitt’s termination letter, the university said it used good-faith judgment to conclude conduct by at least two of Pruitt’s assistants and several others likely will result in NCAA Level I or Level II violations and that this occurred because of Pruitt’s neglect or lack of reasonable preventative compliance measures.

The termination letter also said UT expects Pruitt will be found responsible for a Level I or Level II violation for a failure to promote compliance within the program or monitor the activities of coaches and staff who reported to him.

“Based on what I’ve read, there’s certainly a good chance that he may fall under the for-cause category,” Greenberg said.

The question facing Tennessee is whether it wants to try to prove its conclusions throughout a long, expensive lawsuit in which the two sides are likely to get “as invasive, in terms of discovery, as the court will allow,” Lust said.

The way Greenberg sees it, a settlement is the most logical move.

“The cost of putting on this show is so dang expensive that it’s probably better off just to settle and everybody goes their own way,” Greenberg said, “and I’m talking about the cost not only from coach’s perspective, but from the university’s perspective.

“It would seem to me that common sense, from the tenor of his attorney’s letter, they’d probably be best off with a separation agreement with nondisclosure – both of them would be best off.”

Blake Toppmeyer is an SEC Columnist for the USA TODAY Network. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer. If you enjoy Blake’s coverage, consider a digital subscription that will allow you access to all of it.