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More on WVU v. Rodriguez

By Rick Karcher, Michael McCann, Geoffrey Rapp, Greg Skidmore, and Howard Wasserman

Last week I talked about West Virginia University's lawsuit against former football coach Rich Rodriguez. Rodriguez removed the case to federal court based on diversity-of-citizenship jurisdiction, arguing that he became a citizen of Michigan prior to the filing of the lawsuit on December 27.

Last Friday, WVU filed a motion to remand to state court. It hit both of the points I discussed in the earlier post. First, the university is an arm of the State of West Virginia and not a citizen of West Virginia for diversity purposes. Second, Rodriguez was a West Virginia citizen on December 27. WVU points to four facts: a) Rodriguez had lived in West Virginia for a number of years prior to the lawsuit; b) Rodriguez and his family still live in their West Virginia residence (the place where Rodriguez was served with process); c) Rodriguez's children continue to attend school in West Virginia; and d) on January 10 (two weeks after the lawsuit was filed), Rodriguez sent a piece of correspondence listing his West Virginia residence as return address.

WVU also amended its complaint to add a claim for breach of contract. The first payment on the buyout clause apparently was due last Friday and was not paid.

Full post as published by Sports Law Blog on January 22, 2008 (boomark / email).