Federal judge rules former Baylor coach Art Briles was not negligent in assault case involving former player

A judge has dismissed a lawsuit against former Baylor head football coach Art Briles, who was accused of negligence in a case involving a former female student who reported being physically assaulted by one of his players in 2014. 

U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman ruled Briles, former athletic director Ian McCaw and Baylor University were not negligent in the case. Judge Pitman said “no reasonable jury can conclude” that happened based on evidence that was presented during trial. 

Dolores Lozano, the plaintiff in the case, claimed the three defendants were negligent after reporting her first assault in March 2014, which led to more alleged abuse by Devin Chafin, a running back in the Bears’ program who she had been dating. 

Pitman also dismissed a federal Title IX lawsuit against the defendants. 

“I am happy for Coach Briles,” his attorney, Reed Simpson, said after the rulings, per KWTX. “He did nothing wrong.”

Briles and McCaw both testified in court Thursday, and Briles said he simply did not know about Lozano or her allegations of assault by Chafin until a lawsuit was filed in 2016. 

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McCaw noted that when he saw the report of the allegations from a staff member in 2014, he took the appropriate course of action, which included letting her know how to further the report. 

“Everything that’s been said about him is not true,” Simpson said about Briles, per ESPN. 

Briles was fired by the Bears in 2016 amid investigations into the situation. Simpson said he hopes these dismissals help restore Briles’ reputation as a coach. 

However, other alleged sexual assaults were discovered by the law firm Pepper Hamilton during an investigation into the school’s handling of the allegations.

Pepper Hamilton accessed dozens of reports in 2015 and 2016 of sexual assault and used five, all claims against football players, in a presentation to the university in May 2016. 

Lozano’s report was not brought up in that presentation. 

“There is no question that bad things happened and mistakes were made bay Baylor,” said the university’s attorney, Julie Springer. “Baylor accepts and accepted responsibility for those failures. This case is not one of the cases in the findings. In Dolores Lozano’s case, Baylor got it right.”

How Briles is viewed since his firing at Baylor was illustrated after he emerged on the field with Oklahoma Sooners offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby, his son-in-law, during the Sooners’ 28-11 win over SMU in September. 

Lebby apologized for Briles’ presence. 

“Just want everybody to understand, my father-in-law – his presence on the field after the game the other night is just something that created a distraction,” Lebby said in a statement Monday. “And I do – I apologize for that. That was not the intent at all. The intent was just to celebrate with my family.”