The Lewis F. Powell Jr. federal courthouse in Richmond is home to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit. (Photo: Ned Oliver/ Virginia Mercury)
A case concerning alleged sexual abuse by a former NC State sports doctor will return to the federal district court in Raleigh after a unanimous three-judge Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals panel vacated its dismissal on Tuesday.
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina will now consider whether the university was “deliberately indifferent” to misconduct complaints against Robert Murphy, who served as the school’s director of sports medicine.
The lawsuit — brought in April 2023 by a male student-athlete identifying as John Doe 2 who attended the school in 2020 and 2021 — is one of three brought against the school over its handling of Murphy’s alleged conduct spanning a decade, which plaintiffs say enabled sexual abuse by the sports doctor and created a hostile environment for students.
Murphy was found to have violated the school’s sexual harassment and discrimination policy through a 2022 campus Title IX investigation, according to the News & Observer. He left his post later that year due to an “involuntary separation,” after which the university closed the investigation. No criminal charges were brought against Murphy.
In the complaint, the unnamed student alleged that on multiple occasions, Murphy directed him to remove his underwear during a sports massage and repeatedly made direct contact with his genitals without his consent.
The complaint followed a suit brought by former soccer player Benjamin Locke in 2022, who alleged that Murphy inappropriately touched his genitals an estimated 75 to 100 times from 2015 to 2017 during massages that Locke believes were not medically necessary. Another John Doe lawsuit brought in February 2023 alleged similar misconduct.
Locke’s lawsuit also claimed that the university was given adequate notice of Murphy’s conduct by then-head soccer coach Kelly Findley, who the complaint said in 2016 told an athletic director he believed Murphy “was engaging in what he suspected was sexual grooming of male student-athletes.”
All three cases against the university were dismissed by the lower court in September 2023 on the grounds that the school did not receive “actual notice” of abuse under Title IX guidelines, though the judge allowed the first defendant to proceed with a lawsuit against Murphy himself.
The Fourth Circuit found that the lower court erred in dismissing the John Doe 2 lawsuit, and specifically, in its finding that the report of suspected grooming by Findley did not meet the standard of “actual notice” of harassment — a prerequisite for the university to be held liable.
“Under any definition, the term ‘sexual grooming’ connotes a pattern of wrongful and sexually motivated conduct,” Chief Judge Albert Diaz wrote in the court’s opinion. “Drawing all reasonable inferences in Doe’s favor, ‘a reasonable official would construe’ Findley’s report of ‘sexual grooming’ as alleging sexual harassment.”
Diaz left open the question of whether the official — Sherard Clinkscales, then the school’s senior associate athletic director — was an appropriate official holding the authority to address sexual harassment complaints, a judgment that the lower court “assumed without deciding.” For a school to be held liable, a plaintiff must demonstrate that such an appropriate official was notified.
“The university argues that the complaint’s allegations on this point are insufficient because they consist of little more than Clinkscales’s title,” Diaz wrote. “But the district court didn’t address this question, and we decline to decide it in the first instance.”
The Fourth Circuit remanded the case to the lower court to reach a conclusion on that question, recommending that it also consider whether to give the student-athlete the opportunity to amend his complaint to shed further light on this aspect of the case.
A spokesperson for NC State declined to comment on the ruling, citing a policy against issuing statements on pending litigation.
“I will continue to take every step necessary to find the justice and respect these young men deserve,” said Kerstin Sutton, who represents the three student-athletes. “Despite the lengthy legal path in front of us, I am inspired by the courage of these men in coming forward with their shocking stories of sexual abuse which has already put an end to Wolfpack athletes being abused in this manner at NCSU.”
Sutton declined to specify what procedural steps she would take in the other two cases against the university that were dismissed on the same grounds. She expressed gratitude to appellate attorneys Jim Davy and Alexandra Brodsky for bringing the case “back from the brink of legal demise.”
The Fourth Circuit issued its ruling as a published opinion, meaning it acts as a binding precedent for the lower courts and could be cited to appeal the other dismissals.