Sportsfrog.com

So, here’s the thing.

There are any of a number of ways to defend civil lawsuits. Whether it is a breach of contract case, personal injury defense, car wreck, slip and fall, products liabilty, whatever, one of avenues of defense is to attack the alleged damages. Quite simply, you argue to the Court that the aggrieved party is not nearly as damaged as they say they are. If you prevail in your proof and argument, then, even if you are found liable for the plaintiffs injuries, their recovery is lessened, perhaps significantly. Defense 101.

So, consider that a brief background to the lawsuit filed by Louisville against Duke for Duke backing out of its contract to play Louisville in football through the 2009 season (three games affected). It was a breach of contract action, filed in Kentucky, and if Louisville was right that Duke breached the contract, then Duke had some damages to pay.

So, if you are Duke’s attorneys, and defense 101 is to minimize damages, what do you do?

Say! Duke football blows mule! Let’s point that out to the Judge and see what happens. Which is what happened in fact as “Duke’s lawyers argued that the Blue Devils’ performance on the field was so poor that any Division I team would suffice as a replacement. Duke is 6-45 over the past five years, 13-90 since 1999.”

Did the Court buy it? Hells yes:

Held, by Judge Phillip Shephered of the Franklin County Kentuck Circuit Court, that:

“At oral argument, Duke [with a candor perhaps more attributable to good legal strategy than to institutional modesty] persuasively asserted that this is a threshold that could not be any lower,” Shepherd wrote in a summary judgment issued Thursday, according to the paper. “Duke’s argument on this point cannot be reasonably disputed by Louisville.”

Fuck yeah. Nice work to the Duke attorneys and, really, what could the Louisville attorneys say? “No, they’re awesome?” And, voila! Hundred of thousands of dollars of potential damages for the breach of contract gone with the wind.