Musings of a Gym Fan

that video of 100+ blond boys screaming “GIVE US LIVVY”…i am going to have nightmares

seems like, among other things, overcompensation for the crime of being at a women’s sporting event. gotta make it clear to everyone that you think women’s gymnastics is a joke and you’re only there to be part of a sexual harassment mob :) anything else would be emasculating :)

“It is a good thing that’s she bringing more people to the sport but-” let me stop you right there bud because no it literally is not. these “fans” who are there for someone who did not make lineups and who are happy to harass any other gymnast they see for the crime of not being their blorbo are giving “my alumni donor daddy helped me beat the rape charges,” so i think a little gatekeeping is ok. good even

anyone who is saying that their presence is good is out of their mind lmao. this is the equivalent of saying it's good that the subscribers to /r/gymnasticsnsfw are showing up en masse to meets so they can find more 18 year old girls to sexualize

anyone who makes the environment a less safe place for the athletes is not welcome but the capitalist brain worms to say asses in seats and eyeballs on advertisements from creeps is good in a sport with possibly the most infamous and widespread sexual abuse case in the history of the country is absurd

i am genuinely worried for her safety at this point

they need to have eyes on this situation and not let it happen ever again because not only is this terrifying and dehumanizing for livvy herself but it’s also extremely fucked up for the entire team. i mean these are extremely unsafe working conditions and i sure as hell wouldn’t be able to stay on beam if i knew i was gonna have to go past this on my way out

exactly like. its already absolutely unacceptable for them to be showing up at a venue to harass this girl in person. but as these 2 tweets (and original tiktok post) demonstrate, this poisons the well for goddamn everybody involved in the meet. plus that facebook group comment from a utah gymnast's mom about how fans were like "well you aren't livvy but you'll do" [the implication being that shes hot enough for them to want to take a photo with her]. these are not gymnastics fans they never have been and never will be. this needs to be dealt with.

comment from the mother of utah senior jillian hoffman [also a blonde of similar build as livvy ftr], for those who were asking

they do not see these girls as people they are fucking decoration

This is great analysis

Yang Bo’s beautiful mount series at the 1989 Konica Cup

Happy retirement, Kim Bui

(Source: IMAGO)

Tang Xijing competes in the Women’s Uneven Bars Final on Day Five of the 2022 National Gymnastics Championship at Huanglong Sports Center in Hangzhou on September 8th

(Sources: Getty Images + IMAGO)

Tang Xijing competes on Floor during the Women’s All-Around on Day Four of the 2022 National Gymnastics Championships at Huanglong Sports Center in Hangzhou on September 7th

(Source: Getty Images)

Luo Rui competes on Beam during the Women’s Team Final on Day Two of the 2022 National Gymnastics Championships at Huanglong Sports Center in Hangzhou on September 5th

(Source: Getty Images)

McCusker v Haney: Resetting Expectations

Not all harms have remedy in the law.

I recently posted an elementary guide to recent developments in the McCusker v Haney court case just based on how the law works and general tactics in such court cases. I have since had a chance to read over the court filings in this case and I think it’s best to reset some expectations.

A Plea: I am not Maggie Haney, I don’t like her. I think Riley has suffered far too much and I wish all the best for her. This post is about the legal case and not about her feelings or frustrations which I’m sure are overwhelming and which I have a great deal of sympathy for.

Disclaimers: I’m not a lawyer, I don’t play one on the internet, to the extent I have had professional training it is in a field called legal history where I was taught how to read court documents as historical sources. It’s very easy for historians to misunderstand what they are reading without such training and think the documents prove things that they do not. The New Jersey court system does not charge for these documents but it is extremely difficult to navigate their website. I did not do so myself. I was given these files on a google drive but they are open to the public. Everything I am about to relate is a matter of public record.

Remember the basics: Riley McCusker is suing Maggie Haney (and others associated with MG Elite and its business entities–for my sanity I’m going to describe the entire MG Elite group of defendants as Haney). McCusker has the burden of proving her case as she is the one using the power of the state to force Haney into court. There is no responsible interpretation of this court case as Haney forcing McCusker to do anything because they wouldn’t be here without McCusker initiating this. The burden of proof in a civil case is the preponderance of the evidence–is the outcome more likely than not. And in this kind of civil liability case blame can be divided up by percentage among several parties. The more people are to blame the lower the amount of damages they can be forced to pay … or blame can be seen as too diverse to award damages at all. Many people failed Riley McCusker besides Maggie Haney. Riley is trying to show it’s mostly Maggie while Maggie’s defense is to show that she isn’t even the majority to blame for Riley’s suffering.

Now for the many buckets of cold water: Riley’s lawyers are well out of their field of expertise and it shows. Their primary area of the law is asbestos litigation and class action cases against defective products. No where have I seen any indication that they have ever handled a case like this before.

I might have wondered if these lawyers were a McCusker family friend (and in legal cases that is generally a bad idea). Maggie Haney has hired lawyers who know what they are doing and appear to handle cases like this regularly. They do not come off as people I like and if I was going to draw a picture of a villain’s lawyer this would be them. But they are smart, competent and effective. Which is what their job is here. They have done nothing unethical as far as I can see.

As you might be getting so far … this case started out on a great foundation for Riley. It’s going to get worse as I lay out how things have played out in court.

Emily Liszewski, currently a gymnast at Pitt, also sued Haney. This is the case where Maggie and Victoria refused to spot her on a new skill, she fell and hit her head on concrete and they were laughing at her until they realized she was having seizures. She also is alleging hair pulling. Riley’s case does not include these physical abuse claims. Early on Emily was represented by the same lawyers as Riley though she now appears to be represented by … the kind of lawyer who should have been handling this case to start with but also the kind who might have told the McCuskers not to file it in the first place. The two cases were combined fairly early on (same defendants and similar facts makes it more efficient for the court system).

The Liszewski case appears to be much stronger and the combination of the cases makes things IMO worse for Riley’s case. In addition to physical claims, Liszewski left MG elite very shortly after the incident, and that’s where things get sticky for Riley’s case. Riley was boarding with the Liszewski family around the time of the accident and there is strong reason to think Riley’s family knew about the details of the incident. Shortly after the incident the McCusker family was living in New Jersey and Liszewski was no longer training at MG Elite. The McCusker family specifically moved to New Jersey so that Riley could continue training with Maggie. In other words, the McCuskers had prior knowledge of abusive behavior on the part of the MG Elite coaches and took large affirmative steps to keep Riley in that gym. The timeline of the Liszewski incident and the McCusker move is … I suspect … devastating to Riley’s case.

From the start in their initial response to the suit Haney’s lawyers signaled that they intended to show that many people were responsible besides Maggie for Riley’s injuries including her parents. This was not only predictable but it is the correct and appropriate tactic for Haney’s lawyers to be taking in defending this case. Riley’s lawyers should have been prepared for this before they filed the case because it was as inevitable as the sun rising.

After the initial discovery phase (establishing specific incidents and who would have knowledge of them) was completed in November 2021, the McCusker side asked for mediation. That went on until sometime in March when Maggie’s lawyers went to the court and said that the mediation did not seem to be going anywhere and filed to add third party defendants to the case. My instinct says that Riley’s lawyers thought Maggie would settle quickly or they only realized after the initial filings and discovery that this case was not going to go well and sought mediation to get out of the case. Maggie’s lawyers rightly see a winning case and aren’t willing to back down. Reminder: Riley is the one who sued here. Haney has an absolute right to defend herself and she shouldn’t be expected to settle a case she can win. If her lawyers advised her to do so it would be unethical on their part because their duty is the the best interest of their client.

So the mediation fails and Haney’s side adds a bunch of third party defendants to the case (as they warned they would). Who are these people:

[Reminder: Courts don’t like when people selectively sue one person who caused them harm when that harm was caused by a group of people. If you were punched by three people and you only sue one of them the court is going to ask why. On a formal level bringing in third parties is about correctly assigning liability. On a strategic level it is about forcing all of these other parties to (involuntarily) help Maggie defend against Riley’s claims.]

You will notice that USAG is not listed here. USAG is not a party in this case (and Maggie Haney’s suit against USAG for her suspension was dismissed last March). There will be no trove of documents found in discovery from USAG because they are not a party to this case. To the extent that such discovery might involve them it will relate to Tom Forster who was hired by USAG in 2018. Despite how much a certain podcaster might want this to be the back door into a treasure trove of USAG’s dirty secrets… this is not the vehicle for that. It was never the vehicle for that.

The latest actions in this case were a hearing on adding the third party defendants (and filings for a reconsideration of that ruling). Riley’s lawyers tried to challenge the inclusion of he parents under a doctrine called “parental immunity”. Except… it doesn’t remotely apply in this case. Parental immunity shields parents from liability for negligent supervision of their child (the controlling case involves a child whose mother was gardening and didn’t notice her child had wandered off to be bitten by a dog). It doesn’t shield parents from willful refusal to supervise and it very narrowly covers things related to a “unique philosophy of child-rearing”. Riley’s parents’ desire for her to go to the Olympics isn’t even in the same universe as this doctrine’s application.

And that’s basically where we are now. Most of the third party defendants haven’t yet responded, no depositions have been taken.

The chances that Maggie Haney wins this case are, IMO, extremely high. And that would be the correct legal outcome of this case. It never should have been filed. Many many people have failed Riley McCusker along the way and the latest people who failed her were these lawyers.