A California appellate panel has thrown a lifeline to a lawsuit by former University of California, Berkeley swimmers, ruling that questions about when each athlete realized they were harmed are factual issues that belong in the trial court. The complaint accuses then-coach Teri McKeever and The Regents of the University of California of enabling years of verbal and emotional abuse. McKeever was fired after a university investigation in January 2023.
As reported by Metropolitan News-Enterprise, Division One of the First District Court of Appeal reversed a judgment of dismissal and held that the issue of the delayed-discovery rule should be decided as to each plaintiff. The panel’s opinion said the first amended complaint survives at least to the point where individualized factfinding can determine when the statute of limitations began to run. The ruling sends the case back to Alameda County Superior Court for further proceedings.
Appeal Sends Case Back to Alameda County
The lawsuit, Touhey v. The Regents of the University of California (Alameda County Superior Court case no. 23CV032249), was filed in May 2023 and lists 18 former swimmers as plaintiffs, according to Boucher.la. Plaintiffs say they only understood the scope of the conduct after a May 2022 Orange County Register investigation and the university’s publication of a redacted personnel report in January 2023, which the complaint says prompted many to recognize their injuries as tied to institutional misconduct. As the complaint explains, earlier experiences were viewed by the athletes as the cost of elite sport until media and investigatory disclosures reframed those memories as abuse.
What Plaintiffs Allege…