Zion-Benton football coach paid in firing lawsuit settlement

Oct. 27--Zion-Benton Township High School's head football coach will receive $70,000 for settling a lawsuit he filed against the four school board members who voted to fire him.

The lawsuit, filed by Coach Robert Moynihan and his wife, Joyce, in October 2016, claims that then-board member Linda Powell had pressured Moynihan to play her son more and, when that failed, attempted to have him fired as head football coach.

The lawsuit alleges that Powell's actions caused Moynihan to suffer a heart attack, to fear for his life, and the attempt to have him fired caused him "severe emotional distress," resulting in depression and anxiety.

Powell has called the lawsuit "frivolous" and said her goal had been to get all students meaningful playing time. She said she's heard from many parents who agreed with her, and she hopes they reach out to the board if they want to see changes.

"My focus was holding the administration accountable for their decisions and nothing more," she said.

Powell, who resigned from the board in August after moving to another school district where her younger son plays football, said Wednesday that she had been unhappy with the settlement and felt forced into it.

The settlement, which was finalized in court in September, included a payment of $70,000 to the Moynihans to be paid by the district's insurance and no admission of wrongdoing, according to both Powell and the Moynihans' attorney.

Zion-Benton Township School District 126, which was not named in the lawsuit, paid a $15,000 deductible to its insurance, according to district records obtained by the News-Sun this week.

Superintendent Chris Clark and an attorney representing school board members Loren Karner and Kathleen Richards declined comment. Attempts by the News-Sun to reach Karner and Richards were unsuccessful.

The fourth school board member, Thomas Handyside, was dismissed from the lawsuit in May.

The original terms of the settlement had been reached in April, said John Moynihan, the Moynihans' attorney and Robert Moynihan's brother. When they filed a motion asking the court to enforce the deal, Powell said she had never agreed to those terms.

Powell said in an interview that she hadn't wanted to settle because the motion to dismiss filed by the attorney representing the school board members had not been ruled on by the judge.

"I feel like I didn't get justice," she said, adding that eventually she decided she just wanted to move on.

Powell had "consistently expressed" throughout the settlement negotiations that her top priority was that there be enough money, either from the district's insurance or the Moynihans, to cover the cost of her son attending a school other than Zion-Benton, according to an affidavit submitted by Powell. In exchange, she said she would resign from the school board.

The Moynihans never would have agreed to that because it amounted to bribery of a public official, their attorney said.

They did eventually agree, after Powell resigned from the board, to drop a provision that would have prevented Powell from voting on measures related to Moynihan's employment as a coach or teacher, John Moynihan said.

"This is hopefully done and over," attorney John Moynihan said. "She's no longer on the board. Hopefully, it goes away and ends. But we have some serious doubts about that."

Both Moynihan through his attorney and Powell said the other had a personal vendetta against them.

The lawsuit alleges that Powell made "disparaging comments" about Moynihan, disrupted the team, and generally made "a nuisance of herself," but then escalated things Oct. 23, 2015, to threats, telling several people during a football game that night that she was going to murder Moynihan.

Powell said that her relationship with Moynihan "changed drastically" that day, because her son was taken to the hospital after suffering an injury.

She said she considered Moynihan's decisions leading up to the injury as "gross negligence."

In June 2016, the school board voted 4-3 to remove Moynihan, who is also a special education teacher, from his position as head football coach.

The Moynihans' lawsuit alleges that vote was obtained by Powell, who had previously voted to retain Superintendent Chris Clark, agreeing to switch her vote in exchange for Karner, Richards and Handyside voting against the recommendation to retain Moynihan as coach.

Powell denied that there was any scheme to remove Moynihan and Clark, and said the decision had been based on a video that had been posted to Moynihan's Facebook page that talked disparagingly about Powell and her son. The video had been made by another person and Moynihan had been tagged in it, she said.

John Moynihan said he wasn't aware of any video, and after speaking to his brother, added that he denied posting any video online. John Moynihan added that numerous community members had asked about the basis for the vote and that Karner had said they would not be talking about the reasons.

Shawn White, the current board president who had voted in favor of retaining Moynihan as a coach, said he could not recall any conversation about a video.

The vote to fire Moynihan was overturned a month later in a 6-1 vote with Powell voting no after more than a 100 people attended a special board meeting to show their support for Moynihan and Athletic Director Lonnie Bible.

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