Correction appended
The College privately settled a lawsuit that sought damages in the death of Christina Porter '06, who passed away several months after sustaining severe head injuries during a skiing class at the Dartmouth Skiway on Feb. 3, 2004, the Associated Press reported Tuesday. The College also received notification on Monday that the Grafton County Superior Court denied a motion for reconsideration of the court's Jan. 8 decision to dismiss the second alumni lawsuit against Dartmouth's Board of Trustees, according to a notice of the decision dated Feb. 5.
The lawsuit filed by Porter's parents, Brent and Mary Solstrom Porter, ended in a confidential settlement, according to the AP.
"The lawsuit was resolved on amicable terms," College attorney Thomas Quarles, Jr. said in a statement.
The details of the settlement will not be made public because all terms are "confidential," according to the statement.
Mary Salstrom Porter confirmed the settlement to the AP on Tuesday.
On Feb. 3, 2004, while enrolled in a College class for beginning skiers, Christina Porter skied into a tree on the Skiway while not wearing a helmet. After the accident, Porter was in a coma for six months before dying, The Dartmouth previously reported.
Porter's parents sought more than $20 million in damages from the College for wrongful death and negligence.
Neither of Porter's parents nor their attorneys could be reached for comment by press time.
The Grafton County Superior Court's decision on the alumni lawsuit was a response to a January filing that took issue with several of the court's previous findings on the College's potential legal obligation to maintain Board parity.
The alumni lawsuit was the second legal challenge to the Board's September 2007 decision to end parity between alumni-elected and Board-selected trustees.
The first lawsuit, filed by the Association of Alumni in October 2007, was withdrawn by the Association's executive committee in June 2008 and dismissed with prejudice after the alumni body elected a new executive board to the Association, which did not support the legal action.
The second lawsuit was filed by a group of independent alumni B.V. Brooks '47, John Steel '54, Kenneth Clark, Jr. '67, Marisa DeAngelis Kane '83, John Plunkett '57, Douglas Raichle '66 and Robert Reed '49 who alleged, similarly to the original suit, that the decision to end parity violated what they believe to be a legally binding 1891 agreement between alumni and the College to maintain parity between Board-selected and alumni-elected trustees on the Board.
The College moved for a summary judgment on the second lawsuit in December, arguing that the case was already settled by the first legal proceeding, which was dismissed with prejudice.
On Jan. 19, representatives of both sides of the lawsuit were notified of Judge Timothy Vaughan's dismissal of the case in a summary judgment.
Eugene Van Loan, a lawyer at Wadleigh, Starr & Peters, P.L.L.C. who represented the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, filed a motion for reconsideration of the decision following the case's dismissal, Van Loan previously told The Dartmouth.
Representatives of the College were notified on Monday that Vaughan denied the motion for reconsideration.
"The motion raises no points of fact or law that the Court did not consider in issuing its prior order," Vaughan wrote in his order denying the motion for reconsideration.
Vaughan ruled that individual College alumni are not "third-party beneficiaries" to the agreement to maintain parity because the alumni body is represented by the Association of Alumni.
Before filing the motion to reconsider, Van Loan told The Dartmouth that he felt there were several errors in Vaughan's decision.
"I would say the most obvious problem with [the decision] is that the judge apparently had some kind of mis-impression that the plaintiffs had conceded he called it admitted that the rights of the alumni with respect to parity could be cut off by a vote of the body of alumni, and although that is an issue relevant to the case, there is no such concession in that regard," Van Loan said.
In the notification of the dismissal, Vaughan reaffirmed his ruling that the plaintiffs admitted that the election of a new Association executive committee could "empower the executive committee to terminate the parity agreement."
Vaughan also wrote that the court had "independent grounds" to find that the petitioners were not third-party beneficiaries to the parity agreement.
The plaintiffs may now seek an appeal of Vaughan's decision in the New Hampshire Supreme Court, Van Loan said before filing the motion for reconsideration.
Neither Van Loan nor any of the plaintiffs could be reached by press time to determine whether the plaintiffs will appeal the decision.
John MacGovern '80, founder of the Hanover Institute, a nonprofit organization that paid the plaintiffs' legal fees, said in an interview with The Dartmouth that the institute would continue to fund the lawsuit if the plaintiffs decide to file an appeal.
Bob Donin, the College's general counsel, said in a statement that "Dartmouth is pleased" with the denial of the motion for reconsideration.
"We had hoped last month that the plaintiffs would finally accept the court's decision," Donin said in the statement. "And we hope that they will do so now, rather than continue to drain Dartmouth resources, particularly at a time when the College is trying to address the impact of the prolonged economic downturn."
