The lawsuit filing contains several inconsistencies.<\/b>
\nA new lawsuit accusing former athletic director George Perles and the Michigan State University police of refusing to investigate a 1992 rape by Larry Nassar is pockmarked with inconsistencies, raising questions for some and a defense of the plaintiff by others.
Several assertions made in the lawsuit also are disputed by Merrily Dean Baker, who took over as MSU athletic director while the events described by plaintiff Erika Davis allegedly unfolded.
\u00ab\u00a0There seems to be something messed up about the timeline. It doesn’t make sense,\u00a0\u00bb said Baker, who said she never heard of Davis’ allegations before the lawsuit was filed Monday.
Among the issues with the lawsuit: It says Nassar was Davis’s doctor in 1992 when the rape occurred. In fact, Nassar — a former MSU physician who molested hundreds of patients — was still in medical school in 1992, and it’s unclear in what context he might have treated Davis for a 1992 knee injury.
However, a legal expert said it’s \u00ab\u00a0very common\u00a0\u00bb to have errors and inconsistencies in a lawsuit filed just before the statute of limitations expires.
\u00ab\u00a0It happens all the time when a plaintiff comes to a lawyer at the last minute, and the lawyer is trying to meet a deadline,\u00a0\u00bb said Lauren Rousseau, a Cooley Law School professor who teaches on procedures in civil cases
\u00ab\u00a0But you do need to go back and fix it,\u00a0\u00bb Roussau said about errors and inconsistencies, and those corrections are typically via an amended complaint.
Davis’ lawsuit was filed on Monday, Sept. 10, the final day that Nassar victims assaulted between 1996 and June 2016 could file a claim under Michigan’s statute of limitations.
Nassar-inspired legislation may not cover 1992 rape case
Jordan K. Merson, the New York attorney who drafted the lawsuit, is \u00ab\u00a0not taking media questions at this time,\u00a0\u00bb according to the woman who answered the phone at Merson’s Manhattan office.
The plaintiff, Erika Davis of California, and Martha Ludwig, a former MSU field hockey coach who is referenced in the lawsuit, also could not be reached for comment.
Michigan State University declined to answer questions beyond a statement issued Tuesday.
According to the lawsuit, Davis was a 17-year-old in 1992 who was attending MSU on a field hockey scholarship. After a knee injury at a spring practice, Ludwig referred Davis to Nassar for treatment, the lawsuit says.
Davis was sexually assaulted during her appointments with Nassar, the lawsuit says, including during an incident where she says she was drugged and raped. She became pregnant as a result of that rape, the lawsuit says, and the pregnancy ended in a miscarriage.
The lawsuit also says that Davis told her coach about the rape, and Ludwig went to the athletic department, where Perles intervened to put a stop to any investigation.
Lawsuit alleges Nassar raped MSU athlete in 1992; Perles covered it up
Perles, now a MSU trustee who has not responded to requests for comment, was MSU’s head football coach at the time and also was the university’s athletic director before Baker took over in May 1992.
Davis also alleges that she went to the MSU Police Department several months later and they also refused to investigate.
The lawsuit says that Davis lost her athletic scholarship after going to police. It also suggests that Ludwig lost her job after confronting Perles.
Among the questions about the lawsuit:
1. Nassar was not a doctor in 1992.
The lawsuit says when Davis saw Nassar in 1992, \u00ab\u00a0he was a renowned orthopedic sports medicine physician, well respected in the gymnastics community and the team doctor of the United States Gymnastics team.\u00a0\u00bb
In reality, Nassar was still a student at MSU’s College of Osteopathy in 1992. He didn’t become a doctor until his graduation in 1993.
Nassar made his name in the sports world in 1996, when he was team doctor for the U. S. Olympic gymnastics team for the first time. He was hired by MSU in 1997 as a sports-medicine doctor.
Before becoming a doctor, Nassar worked for years as an athletic trainer and it’s possible that he treated Davis in that capacity. But it’s unclear whether he was on the MSU payroll at that time.
2. Michigan State had a new athletic director when Perles allegedly intervened.
According to the lawsuit, Davis told her coach, Ludwig, about the rape and Ludwig \u00ab\u00a0confronted\u00a0\u00bb Nassar in May 2018.
\u00ab\u00a0The coach then complained about what Defendant Nassar did to Plaintiff Erika to the current Athletic Director at Defendant Michigan State University. George Perles, former Athletic Director at Defendant Michigan State University, intervened\u00a0\u00bb and stopped an investigation, the lawsuit says.
\u00ab\u00a0That makes no sense,\u00a0\u00bb said Baker, who became MSU’s first woman athletic director on May 18,1992.
She adamantly denies that she ever heard of Davis or her allegations before this week, and said Perles wouldn’t have been in a position to intervene if he had already left the AD job.
\u00ab\u00a0I never heard a breath about this situation, ever,\u00a0\u00bb she said. \u00ab\u00a0This must have happened before I got there. There’s no way I would have forgotten that.\u00a0\u00bb
But if it happened while Perles was still athletic director, Baker said she’s \u00ab\u00a0confounded\u00a0\u00bb why Davis and\/or Ludwig never came to her.
\u00ab\u00a0I’m struggling to understand why I didn’t hear something about this from someone\u00a0\u00bb in the spring or summer of 1992, Baker said.
Baker, who now lives in Florida, said she most certainly would have taken action. \u00ab\u00a0Rape is a crime,\u00a0\u00bb Baker said. \u00ab\u00a0How could anybody hear those words and say, ‘It’s not my problem?'\u00a0\u00bb
Moreover, she said, investigating a sexual assault reported by a student athlete is required by Title IX — and Baker was an expert and outspoken proponent of the federal law.
\u00ab\u00a0Whoever didn’t report it was breaking the law,\u00a0\u00bb she said about Davis’ allegations. \u00ab\u00a0My approach was that if you even heard a breath of rumor about a sexual assault, you investigate.\u00a0\u00bb
3. Baker, not Perles, was the athletic director when Davis allegedly went to MSU police.
From the lawsuit: \u00ab\u00a0In October of 1992, Plaintiff Erika and her friends went to the Michigan State University police department and reported the rape. The police told them that since she was an athlete, she had to report it to the athletic department.
\u00ab\u00a0The detective explicitly told them that he was powerless to investigate anything that takes place to the athletic department and to go to the athletic department,\u00a0\u00bb the lawsuit said. \u00ab\u00a0Plaintiff Erika explained that the athletic department already dismissed it and the Sergeant responded that George Perles is a ‘powerful man,’ and she should just drop it.\u00a0\u00bb
By October 1992, Baker had been the MSU athletic director for five months, and she says MSU police would or should have known that Baker would have fully supported Davis in filing a criminal complaint against Nassar.
It’s unclear why MSU police would reference Perles, then MSU’s head football coach, about a rape case involving a woman field hockey player and a MSU medical student.
Perles \u00ab\u00a0wouldn’t have anything to do with that\u00a0\u00bb in October 1992, Baker said.
4. The lawsuit suggests Ludwig, the MSU field hockey coach, may have been fired as a result of confronting MSU officials about the alleged rape. But Ludwig stayed on to coach another season.
This part of the lawsuit is especially confusing. After Ludwig heard about the rape, according to the lawsuit: \u00ab\u00a0George Perles, former Athletic Director at Defendant Michigan State University intervened and the charges were dropped against the coach, but she was forced to return the video, resign and sign a non-disclosure agreement.\u00a0\u00bb
The reference to a video involves an alleged video of Nassar assaulting Davis.
The lawsuit doesn’t explain the \u00ab\u00a0charges\u00a0\u00bb levied against coach or reason for a non-disclosure agreement.
As for the implication that Ludwig was forced to resign: MSU records show that Ludwig was still the field hockey coach in fall 1992. She left after that year, a 6-14 season. Ludwig had a 20-57-5 record during her four years at MSU.
Baker said she doesn’t recall Ludwig, including the circumstances of her departure, and says the MSU athletic director didn’t have the unilateral authority to fire the field hockey coach, who was supervised by an associate athletic director.
5. The lawsuit suggests Davis was pressured by \u00ab\u00a0her coach\u00a0\u00bb not to report the assault.
From the lawsuit: \u00ab\u00a0Plaintiff Erika was pressured by her coach and the athletic department to not report this incident and was told if she reported it that she would lose her field hockey scholarship.\u00a0\u00bb
This statement appears to contradict the lawsuit’s earlier assertion that Ludwig went to administration to report the rape.
\u00ab\u00a0Who told (Davis) that she could lose her scholarship?\u00a0\u00bb Baker said.
Baker said her strong inclination is to believe victims when it comes to reports of sexual assault. On this lawsuit, she said, \u00ab\u00a0I’m not casting judgment. I am trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together and there are lots of points of perplexity.\u00a0\u00bb
Minor inconsistencies can crop up in any retelling of an event, particularly when the event was traumatic for a person, said Dr. Jim Hopper, a teaching associate in psychology at Harvard Medical School’s Department of Psychiatry who studies the neurobiology of trauma and sexual assault.
People often use contextual clues from their past to recall details about a major event, Hopper said. As victims are asked for a specific retelling of an assault, \u00ab\u00a0they’re partially reconstructing things without realizing that’s what they’re doing,\u00a0\u00bb he said, adding that those details which were emotionally significant and a central focus at the time will generally stay consistent.
In the case of Davis’ suit against Michigan State, Hopper said it’s also possible that attorneys, when attempting to meet the deadline, confused elements of the victim’s story or facts about the events.
\u00ab\u00a0It might have absolutely nothing to do with the victim’s memory,\u00a0\u00bb he said.
Rousseau said that attorneys filing a civil lawsuit in federal court \u00ab\u00a0need to make reasonable inquiry and make sure they have evidentiary support for their facts.\u00a0\u00bb
However, she said, the standard of \u00ab\u00a0reasonable inquiry\u00a0\u00bb depends on the circumstances, and judges take into account if a lawyer only has a few days to investigate a plaintiff’s claims.
Davis and her lawyer now have 21 days from Sept. 10 to file an amended complaint that corrects any errors in the initial filing, Rousseau said.
There’s also a 21-day window to file another amended complaint after MSU gives its response to the lawsuit.
\u00ab\u00a0Even when there’s errors in a lawsuit, there’s an opportunity to clean them up,\u00a0\u00bb she said.
MLive reporter Lauren Gibbons contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

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