On Friday Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti announced Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh would be barred from coaching his Wolverines in the three remaining regular season games.
The school quickly took legal action, with lawyers representing Harbaugh and the University of Michigan Board of Regents asking a Washtenaw County Circuit Court judge to approve a temporary restraining order on the suspension, which comes in the midst of allegations of in-person, off campus scouting and sign stealing.
The case was not heard Friday night ahead of Michigan’s showdown at Penn State Saturday, which the Wolverines won quite comfortably, 24-15, despite Harbaugh’s absence.
In a letter announcing the discipline, Petitti referred to the “impermissible scheme” as “proven” by NCAA investigators. Given that the scheme has been determined by the sport’s governing body to have been ongoing this season, Petitti determined it was a violation of the Big Ten Sportsmanship Policy, levying a punishment against the school given “extraordinary” circumstances.
Retired Wayne County Circuit Court Chief Judge Richard Kaufman spoke live on WWJ Sunday morning, weighing in on the legal battle. He says by being a member of the Big Ten, Michigan has “voluntarily agreed to be bound” by the conference’s rules governed by the commissioner.
“So the first question is gonna be, ‘did the Big Ten follow those rules?’ Or did they not follow their own rules and deprive Michigan of due process?” Kaufman said.
Kaufman thinks it will be “an uphill battle” for Michigan to prove not only that Petitti violated the conference’s own rules in handing out his punishment, but that it caused “irreparable harm.”
“That’s harm that can’t be remedied in any other way. And although in law school they told us that the arguments of a lawyer are only limited by his or her imagination, it’s hard to quantify ‘what is the harm of not having our coach on the sideline?’” he said. “Who knows whether it was a help or a hinder when we beat Penn State.”
That, and other claims of irreparable harm, according to Kaufman are “of a kind that I think are going to be very, very difficult to quantify to meet the standard.”
WWJ and 97.1 The Ticket sports anchor Jeff Lesson asked Kaufman whether Saturday’s win — and the fact that Michigan is now 4-0 without Harbaugh this season, dating back to his early season suspension — hurts their argument of showing irreparable harm.
“I think it does,” Kaufman said. “What is irreparable harm? Is it that there’s less of a chance that Michigan’s going to win the football games? Boy, that’s hard to quantify. Is it that he doesn’t get to be on the sidelines in one of the biggest games in Michigan history against Ohio State? Certainly, that’s a personal harm — but is that the kind of harm that the law says is sufficient to satisfy what’s necessary for an injunction?”
The key to getting the temporary restraining order, Kaufman says, is Michigan’s likelihood of winning the original lawsuit.
“That’s the threshold question. When you sue somebody and you want a judge to order them to do something or not to do something, you’ve got to show that you have a claim under the law that’s likely to succeed,” he said. “And, as I said, the only claim that I can see is their argument that they’ve been denied procedural due process. And that can be a valid claim, but that’s gonna be whether or not the commissioner didn’t have the authority under the rules of the Big Ten that Michigan agreed to abide by.”
Kaufman says he’s not “an expert” when it comes to the rules and regulations of the Big Ten, but he would “be surprised if those rules did not justify what the commissioner did.”