James Franklin and Penn State University won’t have to pony up the $5.25 million a Dauphin County jury awarded a fired football doctor Wednesday night. That payment will be the responsibility of defendants Penn State Health, and the orthopedics boss who removed the doctor from his Penn State team roles, Dr. Kevin Black.

But the big win by Dr. Scott Lynch, who was ousted as orthopedic consultant to the football team and director of athletic medicine at Penn State in 2019, clearly comes at the expense of the Nittany Lion head coach and his reputation.

In wake of the stunning verdict, Lynch agreed the head coach was at the heart of the case. But there’s an even bigger goal for the one-time National Champion wrestler for Penn State who turned 63 on the same day the jury awarded him millions in his five-year legal battle.

“It’s not just James Franklin. This is about college sports and protecting college athletes,” Lynch told PennLive after the courtroom cleared.

“I don’t want to talk about him,” he added of the coach Lynch clashed with over player injuries. “I want to talk about the overarching goal, which is to get measures in place to protect student athletes. That’s what it’s always been about for me.”

Still, Franklin’s name, along with his alleged actions and testy temperament toward Lynch and other medical and training staff, came up time and again in the seven-day trial. This, despite the head coach and Penn State Athletics being dropped from the case years ago over a filing deadline technicality.

Lynch maintained his dismissal from his dual football roles followed repeated clashes with Franklin over the doctor’s medical judgments regarding injured players after the head coach took over in 2014. Lynch claimed he was terminated because he refused to “allow a coach to interfere with his medical treatment and return-to-play decisions,” referring to Franklin.

Yet, the defense team, which put a pair of former Penn State star players on the witness stand, never bothered to call Franklin, despite the coach being at the crux of the case.

It might never be known why lead defense attorney, Sarah Bouchard, decided to rest her case without the head coach answering for a litany of examples cited by Lynch, a second team doctor and a former head trainer of Franklin’s meddling in medical decisions.

After the stunning verdict was handed down against her clients, the jury filed out and Judge Andrew Dowling gaveled the case to a close, Bouchard turned on a heel and strode out of the courtroom. She kept right on walking, ignoring a PennLive reporter’s questions seeking comment.

Dr. Black, Lynch’s boss at Penn State Health who delivered the news the orthopedic surgeon was being replaced in his Penn State Athletics roles, also declined comment. Lynch sued Black personally, along with Penn State Health, which is still Lynch’s employer.

But it was Franklin whose hands were all over the doctor’s dismissal, Lynch’s attorney, Steven Marino, argued throughout the trial.

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A similar situation occurred in 2013 when then-football doctor and director of athletic medicine Wayne Sebastianelli was unceremoniously forced out by then-head coach Bill O’Brien. According to testimony undisputed by either side, the head coach wanted Sebastianelli gone, so he was gone. Black testified he argued for his colleague to no avail. Ironically, Sebastianelli was re-appointed to replace Lynch in March, 2019.

Marino also demonstrated through his cross examination of Sebastianelli that before the doctor was re-appointed to the Penn State posts, he met with Franklin at the coach’s house. This suggested the head coach signed off on the team doctor switch before it became official with Dr. Black’s actions at Penn State Health.

Sebastianelli’s odyssey in being fired and then re-hired seemed to set a precedent for the jury that at Penn State, head coaches – not orthopedic department directors or even vast health systems – call the shots when it comes to hiring and firing team doctors.

When it came to Lynch’s ouster, Franklin’s hands were much better hidden by the actions and justifications offered up by Dr. Black and Penn State Health, Marino suggested throughout the case.

“They had a pretextual explanation for what the motive was for Lynch’s removal, and obviously the jury didn’t accept it,” Marino told PennLive.

In painstaking examinations of witnesses, Marino pointed to instance after instance of Franklin being frustrated by injured players who weren’t practicing and angry over stars being medically ruled out of games.

There was never anyone who could explain the coach’s intentions, his state of mind. Only Franklin could have done that, and the head coach never took the witness stand, Marino pointed out.

“Why wasn’t Coach Franklin called as a witness? He was a factual witness. He had information that was material to the facts – relevant and material to this case. They chose not to call him,” Marino told PennLive.

Then the lawyer proceeded to answer his own question: “He would certainly have to explain the actions he undertook and his motives for undertaking them. I think they didn’t want to place him in that position. They knew he would be subject to cross examination.”

In her closing, Bouchard said her clients did “nothing wrong” in removing a Hershey-bound football doctor who wasn’t “all-in” on performing his Penn State duties because he was never available in State College full time.

Marino argued Lynch’s dismissal was retaliation for his client’s repeated clashes with Franklin over medical decisions. Black’s and Penn State Health’s explanations for Lynch’s ouster were tantamount to a coverup intended to distance the head coach from the decision to oust the doctor, he said. It was for this reason Marino argued the defendants should be punished with punitive damages.

For an institution like Penn State Health that traffics in hundreds of millions of dollars, Marino expressed disappointment the jury’s verdict fell short of true punishment.

“I was hoping it would be more significant than that,” Marino told PennLive. “I’m not satisfied. That’s not going to change Hershey Medical Center’s behavior. That’s the cost of doing business.”

As for Penn State’s head coach, what does the verdict mean for him?

Asked if the jury’s decision represented a loss for Franklin, Marino said, “I don’t know how to comment on that. Coach Franklin wasn’t my target.”

Yet, the plaintiff’s lawyer and his aggressive case constantly put the head coach directly in their crosshairs.

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