University lawyers may be scrambling to wrap up the latest lawsuit against the honor system this week before the Honor System Review Commission releases its comprehensive evaluation of the system Friday.
Maurice Guillaume Goodreau III's $1.75 million lawsuit was scheduled to go to trial Monday, four days before the Commission report release date.
The report, among other things, is intended to point out shortcomings in the honor system and strengthen the Committee against potential lawsuits.
Monday's trial never occurred. According to officials from U.S. District Court in Charlottesville, the court where the trial was scheduled to take place, parties in the case agreed not to send the case to trial but to work out a settlement agreement instead.
"It's a negotiation process. Both [sides] would have had to work out the deal," said Kennon Poteat, Committee vice chairman for trials. "It's nothing unusual to have a settlement that close to a trial."
That settlement hearing was scheduled to take place yesterday morning in the Charlottesville chambers of Lynchburg-based U.S. District Court Judge Norman K. Moon.
As of yesterday, no settlement agreement had been reported to the court clerk's office and there had been no more settlement hearing dates set.
Goodreau's case, filed in October of last year, claimed that he was unlawfully stripped of his degree eight years after he graduated. The case named the Board of Visitors, University President John T. Casteen III and three former Committee chairmen.
In 1990, six months after Goodreau graduated, the Committee alleged that while he was a student, Goodreau improperly used funds from the Karate Club for himself, a misdemeanor larceny offense to which he pleaded guilty in court.
The Committee informed Goodreau it would be considered an admission of guilt if he did not either "leave the University" or request an honor trial for his actions. Goodreau did not request a trial and the Committee found him guilty of the honor violation. The Committee informed him that he was banned from returning to the University as a student.
Goodreau submitted a grievance to the Committee in 1996 to remove from his transcript the notation that his enrollment had been discontinued.
The case was reopened by the Committee in 1997, and the Committee determined that further action should be taken against Goodreau.
In May 1998, Goodreau received a letter from Casteen stating that the General Faculty had voted to revoke his degree.
University officials and Committee members would not comment on the status of the case. University Rector John P. Ackerly III said there was no change in the suit after it was sent to a settlement hearing.
University General Counsel Paul Forch, who is working on the case, did not return phone calls.
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