Health system asks judge to reduce or overturn $5.25M verdict awarded to ex-PSU football doc
Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center and a physician asked a judge earlier this month to either reduce or overturn a jury’s verdict that awarded $5.25 million to a former Penn State football team doctor.
The hospital and Dr. Kevin Black argued Dr. Scott Lynch failed to prove his wrongful discharge claim. In a 50-page motion filed in Dauphin County, attorneys claimed Lynch “deceived both the jury and this Court.”
“The real intention was obvious — Plaintiff sought to wage a proxy war against PSU and its Athletics Department, neither of whom were Defendants,” attorneys for the hospital and Black wrote. “In doing so, Plaintiff was permitted, time and again, to introduce inadmissible and irrelevant evidence over objection, and allowed free reign to offer testimony through counsel and mislead the jury.”
Lynch’s attorney, Steven Marino, said Thursday that he believed the judge who presided over the case ran a “clean, fair trial.”
“I don’t believe any of the issues that they have raised for review have any merit,” Marino said.
Lynch’s lawsuit claimed he was removed from his role with the football team because of clashes with coach James Franklin over medical decisions. Franklin, the university and others were dismissed in 2020 over a filing technicality — a ruling Lynch’s attorney appealed Tuesday to the state Superior Court.
Lynch was replaced by Dr. Wayne Sebastianelli, whom the hospital described as a “better qualified and more experienced orthopedic surgeon.” He also lives in State College, while Lynch lived in Hershey.
After deliberating for about three hours at the end of a seven-day trial in May, the jury awarded Lynch $250,000 in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages. The latter are meant to punish and deter future behavior.
The hospital and Black are not seeking a new trial. Instead, attorneys took aim at pre-trial decisions made by the judge who presided over the case.
“A new trial cannot undo the damage that has already been done to Defendants, particularly to Dr. Black, a highly respected surgeon who was wrongfully individually sued as part of Plaintiff’s proxy war,” attorneys wrote. “Defendants do not seek a new trial, but rather, seek the relief it should have received from this Court at the outset: judgment as a matter of law.”
Attorneys argued Lynch’s claim was based on a narrow exception to the at-will employment doctrine that can only be used when a state public policy mandate is violated. They further claimed Lynch never offered elicited testimony that it applied.
Instead, the hospital and Black’s attorneys wrote Lynch’s claim of a public policy violation was “simply a ruse to tell a conspiratorial narrative that had no basis in fact and, more importantly, no nexus to the actual remaining Defendants.”
They also wrote that the award of punitive damages 20 times larger than compensatory damages was “grossly inconsistent” with rulings in similar cases.
Oral arguments are scheduled for Aug. 29 in Dauphin County.
