Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center and a physician are asking for the court to modify or vacate the jury’s decision that granted a former Penn State football team doctor a $5.25 million verdict.

In a 44-page motion filed in Dauphin County Court, the hospital and Dr. Kevin Black argue that Dr. Scott Lynch failed to prove his wrongful termination claim.

An oral argument on the motion is scheduled for Aug. 29 at the county courthouse. The defendants are not seeking a new trial.

Lynch’s attorney Steven Marino said he sees no merit in the motion. As for the defendants’ decision to not seek a new trial, he said that is probably “to avoid the possibility of a jury providing for an even greater award” to Lynch.

“The jury found Dr. Black and Hershey Medical Center accountable for intentional wrongful behavior,” Marino said. “Now with this post-trial motion, Dr. Black and Hershey Medical Center are trying to evade accountability and sidestep their responsibility that the jury found them to be responsible for.”

Lynch’s case centered on his 2019 termination as the orthopedic consultant to the football program and medical director for Penn State Athletics. In his case, he maintained that his ouster came after repeated clashes with head football coach James Franklin over medical decisions and treatment plans for injured players.

Following a seven-day trial, the jury on May 29 delivered a verdict that awarded Lynch $250,000 in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages.

In the motion asking for relief from the verdict, lawyers for the hospital and Black, Lynch’s boss, maintain among other arguments, the wrongful discharge claim was incorrectly based on an exception to the at-will employment doctrine that can only apply when a state public policy mandate is violated.

For that exception to apply, it states the defendants were required to show Lynch committed a crime, was prevented from complying with his statutorily imposed duty or was fired in violation of a statute.

The defendants claims Lynch “sought to wage a proxy war against PSU and its athletic department” and that his claim was “simply a ruse to tell a conspiratorial narrative that had no basis in fact” or nexus with the medical center and Black.

The motion states Lynch improperly was permitted to “confuse and mislead the jury” with irrelevant NCAA bylaws and Big Ten standards even though the court more than four years ago ruled those standards could not underlie the public policy claim.

The case initially named Franklin and Penn State Athletics as defendants but they were dropped over a filing technicality. Franklin was never called to the witness stand in the case.

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