[StanfordMatt]

As an employment lawyer, two things strike me as very strange in this case.

1) Unless Dawkins had some sort of dirt or potential claim against Stanford, it would make no sense for Stanford to waive its right to offset Dawkins' future earnings against its obligation to him.

2) At the time of negotiating his deal with UCF, Dawkins and his counsel clearly believed the mitigation/offset provision was still in place as evidenced by the fact that they backloaded his deal with UCF. If Stanford had waived the offset clause, Dawkins would have had no incentive to do this.

Reading between the lines, I wouldn't be surprised if one issue at play here is that Stanford believed Dawkins' breached the termination agreement by acting in bad faith (i.e. backloading his UCF deal) but that is pure speculation on my part until we see Stanford's reply (assuming no settlement).

Edit: One explanation as to why Stanford may have agreed to waive its right to offset is if Dawkins was actually owed more than the 2.3 million under the termination section of his contract - this doesn't appear to be the case though if Wilner's reporting is accurate that the 2.3 million represented the full value of the remaining two years of his Stanford deal.

[StanfordMatt]

As an employment lawyer, two things strike me as very strange in this case.

1) Unless Dawkins had some sort of dirt or potential claim against Stanford, it would make no sense for Stanford to waive its right to offset Dawkins' future earnings against its obligation to him.

2) At the time of negotiating his deal with UCF, Dawkins and his counsel clearly believed the mitigation/offset provision was still in place as evidenced by the fact that they backloaded his deal with UCF. If Stanford had waived the offset clause, Dawkins would have had no incentive to do this.

Reading between the lines, I wouldn't be surprised if one issue at play here is that Stanford believed Dawkins' breached the termination agreement by acting in bad faith (i.e. backloading his UCF deal) but that is pure speculation on my part until we see Stanford's reply (assuming no settlement).

Edit: One explanation as to why Stanford may have agreed to waive its right to offset is if Dawkins was actually owed more than the 2.3 million under the termination section of his contract - this doesn't appear to be the case though if Wilner's reporting is accurate that the 2.3 million represented the full value of the remaining two years of his Stanford deal.