Negligence claims vs. ex-Baylor coach Art Briles dismissed - ESPN

Former Baylor football coach Art Briles was not negligent in the case involving a former female student who reported being physically assaulted by one of his players in 2014, a federal judge ruled Friday.

U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman dismissed the gross negligence claims against Briles, along with former athletic director Ian McCaw and Baylor University, saying that «no reasonable jury can conclude» based on the evidence presented at trial that the defendants were «grossly negligent.»

The plaintiff, former Baylor student Dolores Lozano, had claimed that the three defendants' negligence after she reported her first assault in March 2014 made her subject to further abuse by football player Devin Chafin, whom she had been dating.

«This case was always about Ms. Lozano getting her day in court,» Pitman said Thursday, but after hearing the evidence, Pitman said there simply wasn't enough there to convince a jury. That leaves the Title IX claim and one negligence claim against Baylor as the only matters to be given to the jury, which reconvenes Monday. Lozano has alleged that the school's overall failures to address and properly respond to reports of sexual violence at that time put her at greater risk for assault and was a violation of Title IX.

McCaw and Briles testified Thursday. McCaw said when he received a report of Lozano's allegations from one of his staff members in 2014 that he took appropriate action and made sure she had been given information on how to further report it. Briles said he simply didn't know anything about Lozano or her reports against Chafin until she filed her lawsuit, which was in 2016. He said he had never communicated with Lozano.

Reid Simpson, an attorney for Briles, was on the courthouse