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The Employer Handbook Blog
Can a Paid Suspension Trigger a Sex Bias Verdict? This One Did.
The university kept paying its softball coach during an investigation. Its no-contact order also stopped her from teaching, and the suspension became a $300,000 sex bias judgment.
TL;DR: A jury found sex motivated a university’s paid suspension of its women’s softball coach, and an appeals court upheld the $300,000 judgment. The university won her separate firing claim. The no-contact rule stopped her teaching, and a male coach kept working during a lengthy investigation.
Parents complained, and the coach went home that day
The employee coached a university softball team, taught classes, and took courses there herself. After a tournament, two parents complained about food, mistreatment, and an earlier hazing incident. The athletic director reviewed the reports, spoke with players, and suspended her with pay without telling her the accusations.
Four days later, HR sent her a letter saying she could have no contact with any university student. That kept her from teaching and attending her own classes. An outside investigator supported some concerns, but found she was not responsible for the hazing. The university fired her in May. A jury found sex motivated the earlier suspension; the university won the firing claim before trial. The appeals court affirmed both.
Why the firing claim failed but the suspension verdict held
In EEOC proceedings, the university cited mistreatment as its reason for firing her. During litigation, it added the softball team’s poor win-loss record as a reason, after criticizing the team’s performance in an earlier evaluation. The court held that adding this reason did not, by itself, show sex discrimination, and her other evidence did not save the firing claim.
The paid suspension presented a different issue. She kept her coaching pay, but the no-contact rule prevented her from teaching. The court held that the restriction changed her working conditions. Under university policy, a coach suspended from coaching generally could keep teaching; the provost decided that separately. Whether sex played a role in imposing the restriction was for the jury to decide.
The university had handled a male baseball coach differently. He faced accusations of urging players to take performance-enhancing supplements. Both sets of reports raised student-safety concerns, yet he kept coaching during a roughly two-year investigation. The university told him the accusations, and he confronted and suspended the player who complained. Although leadership changed during the investigation, he remained on the job.
The university said its policy required a paid suspension when a coach was accused of endangering students. Its treatment of the baseball coach let the jury question that explanation. The suspension process raised another problem: the athletic director announced it before the required presidential approval and written HR notice, then drafted and backdated his recommendation the next day.
Before imposing paid leave, examine comparable cases, approvals, and every duty a restriction will affect.
Three lessons from a paid suspension that survived appeal
Similar safety complaints need a consistent interim response
The university could investigate both coaches, but it needed a defensible reason for removing one immediately while the other continued coaching. Review earlier cases and record the facts that justify a different interim measure.
Broad restrictions can disrupt unrelated duties
The coach kept her coaching pay, yet the student-contact ban stopped her separate teaching work. Before issuing a no-contact order, identify the duties it will interrupt and whether a narrower condition protects the investigation.
The approval trail must match what actually happened
The athletic director announced the suspension before the required approvals and later backdated his recommendation. A truthful record of who decided, approved, and communicated an interim action is more useful than paperwork made to look timely afterward.
The university’s own practices generally allowed a suspended coach to keep teaching. Its treatment of the baseball coach made the broader restriction harder to explain.