Mike Leach will have to be satisfied with the $2 million he receives every year to coach Washington State Football, after the Texas Supreme Court denied his appeal of his wrongful termination lawsuit against Texas Tech Friday.
Leach sued the school in 2010 alleging he suspected “an $800,000 bonus he was due the day after his 2009 firing was behind his dismissal,” the Associated Press reported.
Leach’s attorneys had challenged an appellate ruling that threw out Leach’s breach of contract claim against Texas Tech based on sovereign immunity for the university. The ruling allowed Leach to try to show Tech’s reasons for firing him were wrong – without monetary relief – and the university appealed that decision to the state’s high court.
The high court denied the appeals on both sides, meaning Leach can seek a ruling that Tech erred in firing him by denying him due process. Leach attorney Ted Liggett said he would seek such a ruling, while Tech spokesman Dicky Grigg said he hoped the latest decision was “the end of the road.”
“As we’ve said from the beginning, we were right on the law and the facts, and the (Texas) Supreme Court has just held that we were correct on the law,” Grigg said.
The decision is the latest twist in an ugly case. Leach was accused of twice ordering Adam James to stand for hours confined in a dark place after he got a concussion.
But before America’s favorite pirate enthusiast starts crying into his rum punch, he should take solace in this week’s news that the story of his firing could make its way into the new Friday Night Lights movie.
