Friday, March 10, 2000
Coach wants new trial
She wants judgment in UC firing rethought
BY BEN L. KAUFMAN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Fired swim coach Robin J. Murphy this week asked a federal judge to grant her a new trial and reverse an earlier judgment granted to the University of Cincinnati.
The Terrace Park resident said head coach Monty Hopkins hired her despite a distaste for female assistants, treated her badly and fired her within three months for complaining.
Mr. Hopkins denied any discrimina tion or retaliation, saying, instead, that he invited Ms. Murphy to apply for the job because he wanted a female assistant for the coed team, but he fired her for being insubordinate.
Judge Herman J. Weber dismissed the sex discrimination claim with a pretrial summary judgment.
Then jurors rejected her retaliation claim last month.
Wednesday, attorneys Michael N. Budelsky and Marc D. Mezibov said the trial contained so much evidence of sexual discrimination that Judge Weber should rethink the summary judgment.
The lawyers said Ms. Murphy also deserves a new trial on the retaliation claim because the verdict was against the weight of the evidence, and the jury's responses on the verdict form were inconsistent.
“The jury did not understand the questions before it, or it was confused about the answers,” they said, and either way, it is misconduct that requires a new trial.
Thursday, UC attorney Doreen Canton said the request for a new trial was not unexpected but jurors “absolutely did the right thing” with the retaliation claim.
She disagreed with Ms. Murphy's lawyers on what the testimony proved and predicted the judge would reaffirm his summary judgment on sex discrimination.
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