Jay Edelson
Rick Butler, an nationally influential volleyball coach with a facility in the west suburbs, was sued in federal court today by the mother of former players alleging Butler, his wife and the volleyball business they own misled her on Butler’s past allegations of sexual abuse. Plaintiff Lauren Mullen is seeking class states to recoup the fees she paid for her daughters to play at the facility. — Pixabay/JeppeSmedNielsen, used under CC0
A parent whose daughters played volleyball under Rick Butler at the Sports Performance Volleyball Club in Aurora has filed a federal class-action lawsuit against the coach and his facility, claiming she never would have sent her children had she known about the sexual abuse allegations leveled against Butler.
Plaintiff Lauren Mullen is seeking both monetary compensation for the fees she paid to the club, statutory penalties and a court order that would require the defendants to “fully disclose to current and prospective players and parents the true nature of Butler’s sexual abuse of underage girls.”
“What we’ve unfortunately learned over the last year is that there have been huge problems in regards to girls’ sports and abuses within them,” said Jay Edelson, the firm’s managing partner who is representing Mullen. “Our firm decided to bring this case on a pro bono basis. We’re hoping to do a lot of good here.”
Mullen’s 72-page complaint in federal court details the accounts of five women who alleged they were physically, emotionally and sexually abused by Butler, whom ESPN called in a report earlier this month “the most powerful coach in youth volleyball.”
“Relying on these vulnerabilities and aspirations, Butler set up an environment of dependency and fear with each teenage girl. By repeatedly telling them that they needed to follow his directives ‘blindly’ in order to succeed, combined with threats of blackballing them from the sport and physical intimidation, Butler could mold and pressure each girl to his own ends without fear they would reveal what he was doing,” Mullen alleges.
Butler co-owns GLV, Inc., which does business as Sports Performance, with his wife Cheryl, who is also named in the lawsuit.
Mullen is seeking a jury trial and class certification for her six-count lawsuit. The lawsuit specifically charges the defendants with violating the Illinois Physical Fitness Services Act and the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act, fraud, fraudulent concealment and unjust enrichment.
The Physical Fitness Service Act requires businesses that provide fitness services to include specific provisions in contracts. It allows for those contracts to be voided if they were entered based on false, fraudulent or misleading information.
The complaint, which contends GLV meets the IPFSA’s definition of a “physical fitness center,” cites the law to say that a customer can recover three times the amount of actual damages for an IPFSA violation, plus costs and attorney fees.
Edelson said Mullen paid thousands of dollars to have her daughters play at Sports Performance.
Mullen’s lawsuit details Butler’s extensive influence in the sports world, including ties to Michigan State University, a summer camp he held from 2000 to 2004, and various camps and clinics he held at universities and sporting complexes around the country. Because of Butler’s national reach, the potential class could be thousands of people, Edelson said.
In 1995, USA Volleyball banned Butler for life from its membership after finding that he had unprotected sex with three former players who were 16 or 17 at the time. That ban was partially lifted in 2000, only to be reinstated fully again last month. Earlier this month, the Amateur Athletic Union also banned Butler for life.
Mullen does not allege Butler sexually abused her daughters, but that he verbally and emotionally abused them. Butler allegedly guilt-tripped Mullen’s eldest daughter into participating at a volleyball tournament in China even though her father had been diagnosed with prostate cancer; the father died while the daughter was in China.
Mullen alleges had she “known the full truth and depth of Butler’s sexual, emotional, and physical abuse, she would not have allowed her daughters to attend Sports Performance and she would not have paid fees to defendants.”
A receptionist at Sports Performance referred a request for comment to Cheryl Butler, who works as a head coach at the gym. Cheryl Butler did not respond to a request for comment as of press time.
Mullen is being represented by Edelson, Eve-Lynn J. Rapp, Christopher L. Dore, Alfred K. Murray II and Sydney Janzen of Edelson P.C.