A Textbook Case of Negligent Hiring

Ringling High School (Oklahoma) Head Football Coach Phillip Koons has been charged with outraging public decency. For what, you ask? Here are some of the allegations (reported here):

• “These boys were subjected to a cult-like environment where this guy would groom them, break them down to where they were at a point that they wanted to quit playing football, some of them wanting to commit suicide, and then would build them back up within that cult system and create a deal where he was the most important thing in their lives,” one of the players’ attorney, Tod Mercer, told The Daily Beast. “He would isolate them from their friends, from their family, even from their doctors.”
• Mercer explained that Koons would emotionally destroy his players with bouts of insults, calling Black players on the team the N-word, “porch monkey,” and “stupid African.”
• Mercer provided a list of statements from a football player regarding his time on Koons' team: “Phil Koons and Sterling Koons have made racist comments about fellow teammates during football practice[,] calling a player a porch monkey, n-----, African and jigaboo,” one of the statements read. “This hurt considering you could clearly see the player getting upset. The player also came up to me and expressed how he felt targeted and singled out by his skin color.”
• Koons allegedly made fun of players’ weight, referring to some of the teens as “fat fucks” and telling them to “lay off the twinkies,” according to the player’s statements. He also allegedly referred to the residents of the town as “inbred” and called students “fuck ups” and “fucking idiots” consistently. Koons allegedly went on homophobic rants toward his players and those from opposing teams, repeatedly using anti-LGBTQ slurs. “No group of society was immune from his attacks,” Mercer said. “He would attack and insult women. All races.”
• Koons allegedly had inappropriate talks with players about their romantic relationships, degrading girls who dated multiple players on the team for being “sloppy seconds.” “This got so extensive Phil, Sterling and Cooper even started naming football plays after girls in the school who had current or past relationships with a player on the team,” a statement from the player claimed.
• “Phil Koons, Cooper Koons and Sterling Koons have talked about teachers[’] tits, ass, body and many other humiliating things while encouraging each other in front of us like it was [a] cool thing for your coaches to be talking about your teachers like that,” the statement read.

Previous Allegations

Of course this piece of human excrement had trouble at previous stops. A 2016 article from Oklahoma City Public Affairs details that Koons, as the head coach at a previous school, told high school players—after lowering his pants and exposing himself—that they had to have a “dick” in order to play football.

Parent Complaints

When Koons' contract was up in February of this year, concerned parents brought their concerns to the Board of Education. However, the board unanimously renewed Koons' contract.

Then, the Oklahoma State Department of Education placed Koons on administrative leave as a criminal investigation was launched as a result of complaints by parents.

Somehow, Koons was reinstated in June, just in time for preparation for football season.

Cameron Spradling, another attorney for the victims (or potentially the attorney of different victims with similar allegations), stated “[Koons] just is who he is, and [the board] knew it when they hired him. They just wanted to have a winning program, and they got that but they left a lot of damaged boys in his wake.”

Discussion

While non-criminal acts are not often discovered by a general background check, a simple google search would have provided the information about Koons' history and prior allegations. Negligent Hiring is a cause of action in civil cases in which an employer has knowledge (or should have had knowledge) of the employee's propensity to commit a type of harm in advance of that employee committing the harm.

And there is no excuse for failing to launch an investigation into the complaints of parents like this. Instead, the board unanimously renewed his contract. While that's not a legal issue, you can bet that fact will be played up to a jury in a civil case. The school district, or whoever has responsibility for Koons (like the OK State Department of Education), is very likely to be writing very large check(s) to victims in the future.

Side note: Koons was listed as the principal, his wife is the school counselor, two of his boys are assistant football coaches, and other family members are reported to be part of the faculty and staff. No internal investigation would have been sufficient here. They absolutely should have brought in an outside team.

Takeaways

First, never dismiss allegations of serious misconduct without an investigation. Period.

Second, if an internal investigation is unlikely to be untainted, bring in an outside investigation firm.

Third, and I can't believe that I have to say this, but if the employee is being criminally investigated, DO NOT REINSTATE THEM before the investigation is concluded. This act, along with the unanimous renewal, provide tremendous illustration on the minds of the Board and how seriously it took these issues. That is likely going to cost them major dollars.

Be smarter! 

 

 

 

This article is a cross-post with LinkedIn.