After losing a lawsuit against its former lawyer, Darryl E. Crompton, who was hired as an attorney and faculty member at Tuskegee University in early 2011 but three years later was terminated, the private historically black university was ordered to pay nearly $2 million to Crompton for breach of contract.
Al.com reports Tuskegee must pay Crompton $525,841 “after finding the school breached the provision of Crompton’s contract that provided for a five-year term of employment” plus $1,427,208 “after also finding that the university breached another provision of the contract that provided Crompton would be granted tenure on the first day of his employment,” following a five-day federal trial in Opelika earlier last week.
A Tuskegee University spokesman said in a statement that the school is “disappointed in the initial outcome at this juncture and plans to exhaust every available legal remedy in appealing the jury’s decision.”
The “case demonstrates that when an institution casts aside an outstanding executive in his 60s for no reason, and then falsely suggests that the termination was based on his performance, it effectively destroys his reputation and leaves the courts as his only recourse,” Crompton’s attorney Andy Campbell stated in an email to Al.com.
“Here the evidence showed that Crompton as VP and general counsel was fired because the president shut down the legal department even though Crompton had a 5-year contract and tenure,” Campbell stated. “The surreptitious subsequent personnel classification by Tuskegee that Crompton was ‘ineligible for rehire’ suggested some wrong doing with absolutely no factual basis.”
