Marshall Files Lawsuit Against Conference USA As School Seeks to Leave League

Marshall filed a lawsuit against Conference USA on Tuesday in hopes of clearing the way for the program's early exit from the conference.

The university's board of governors filed a suit in the Cabell County Circuit Court with hopes of establishing jurisdiction in West Virginia while also securing relief through declaratory judgment as well as preliminary and permanent injunctions as the C-USA moves forward with arbitration.

The Thundering Herd joined the C-USA on Oct. 24., 2003, according to the program's bylaws. However, when initially joining the conference, the league's rules calling for a demand of arbitration were not set in place and had not been created.

As a result, the school—in its current position—argues that it has nothing in writing requiring it to abide by the conference's current bylaws.

According to the lawsuit, the university states that the absence of preliminary relief would put the university in a position to “suffer actual, imminent, immediate and irreparable harm” and the “balance of the hardships weighs in the Plaintiff's favor.”

The university, per the lawsuit, states that the aid of injunctions is “necessary to prevent the evasion of an important public policy, prevents multiplicity of suits that results in delay, inconvenience, expense, inconsistency.” The injunctive relief would also be in the best interest of the program as well as “other public universities regarding the scheduling of athletic events for the 2022-23 athletic season.”

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Marshall is one of three schools—along with Old Dominion and Southern Miss—that announced plans to leave the C-USA a year earlier than the league expected in June to join the Sun Belt. All three schools accepted invitations to join the Sun Belt in October.

The Sun Belt is expected to release its 2022 conference football schedules on March 1, and could include the three schools, as C-USA did earlier this month. 

The lawsuit filed by Marshall is the latest in the C-USA controversy after the league previously stated that it would use legal actions to guarantee all members meet their “contractual obligations” set forth by the conference bylaws. 

Marshall sent C-USA a withdrawal notice of its plans to leave the league on Nov. 1 and followed up with another statement in December with the goal to leave before the 2022–23 school year.

Per the lawsuit, Marshall reached out to C-USA on three different instances—Jan. 12, Jan. 20 and Jan. 25—attempting to ensure the league knew it was withdrawing by July 1.

The latter instances also revealed that Marshall asked the league to not include it in athletic scheduling going forward. However, C-USA released its football schedules for the fall 2022 season on Feb. 11, with Marshall included.