Judge dismisses coaches’ lawsuit against Penn State

One of the Paterno lawsuits has been dismissed.

In July 2014, Jay Paterno and Bill Kenney sued Penn State for violating state and federal law in letting them go in 2012.

Paterno, son of the university’s longtime head coach Joe Paterno, was the former quarterbacks coach for the Nittany Lions football team. Kenney coached offensive tackles and tight ends. They were both released in the post-Jerry Sandusky fallout as new coach Bill O’Brien came in and selected his own staff.

On Thursday, a federal judge accepted Penn State’s argument that the case be dismissed.

Judge Lawrence Stengel decided that Paterno and Kenney were let go as part of the routine turnover in the hiring of a new coach, and that happened months before the July 2012 release of the Freeh report, the university-commissioned investigation of the Sandusky scandal by former FBI director and federal judge Louis Freeh or the subsequent NCAA consent decree and its since-lifted sanctions.

Paterno and Kenney had argued in their case that the Freeh report and the university’s handling had contributed to the controversial atmosphere that left them unable to secure similar employment after their release. Paterno is not coaching at the moment, while Kenney is at the much smaller Western Michigan Broncos program.

“Although their terminations occurred in the midst of a scandal, they were not a byproduct of the Freeh report or the consent decree,” Stengel wrote in his opinion.

“I am not convinced that there is any evidence that Penn State made stigmatizing statements specifically about the plaintiffs or any other statements about them that were sufficient to satisfy” a legal aspect called the “stigma-plus” test for the coaches’ case to prevail, the judge said.

Stengel also dismissed the state law issues but without prejudice, saying he declined to exercise jurisdiction on that area. Dismissing without prejudice leaves the door open for the coaches to refile a case in a Pennsylvania court.

Paterno and Kenney are also parties to the ongoing Paterno estate case proceeding through the Centre County Court of Common Pleas.

This story was originally published February 29, 2016 at 9:35 PM with the headline "Judge dismisses coaches’ lawsuit against Penn State."