UNM lawyers have been granted more time to respond to a plaintiff motion of summary judgment in a lawsuit filed by a former UNM School of Medicine professor.
The motion requesting more time was granted Monday by District Court Judge Susan M. Conway, who agreed with UNM counsel that the defense needs more time to collect material relevant to the case before a decision on summary judgment can be rendered.
Conway's decision will also allow defense lawyers an opportunity to obtain a deposition from Cynthia Lopez, the professor who claims she was harassed, retaliated against and eventually fired for blowing the whistle on a group of her students she allegedly caught cheating on an exam.
According to the lawsuit, Lopez and Julian Rowe taught a health care systems course in the fall 2000 semester. The teachers noticed that several students answered exam-essay questions in exactly the same way.
Lopez claims that School of Medicine administrators kept news of the cheating scandal quiet because it coincided with the Masters of Public Health program's bid for accreditation.
The Council on Education for Public Health eventually accredited the program.
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Lawyers from Brown and German, the local law firm handling the suit for the University under the supervision of the State Risk Management office, declined to comment on the case.
Because the defense needed more time to prepare its case, Conway delayed a decision on the plaintiff's motion for summary judgment on the issue of liability - a motion meant to allow the judge to settle the issue of liability while civil damages will be determined later by a six-member jury. Conway's decision on the summary judgment motion is pending defense counsel obtaining Lopez's deposition.
Conway said a hearing has been set for July 14 to determine if Lopez must come to Albuquerque to testify, or if she can do so from her home in Massachusetts.
The lawsuit was originally filed in August 2002 and seeks damages of no less than $25,000.
In addition to the University, three School of Medicine employees have also been named as defendants in the suit: Nina Wallerstein, director of the Master's of Public Health program, Arthur Kaufman, chairman of the Department of Family and Community Medicine and Howard Waitzkin, professor in the same department.
