Even though his most prominent targets are no longer in his sights, Dr. Scott Lynch isn’t giving up his legal battle over what he contends was his unethical ouster as the doctor for Penn State’s football team.

More than a year after a Dauphin County judge dismissed Penn State and coach James Franklin from a lawsuit Lynch filed over his removal, Lynch is continuing to seek damages from the remaining defendants in the case, Penn State Health and Dr. Kevin Black, the system’s chairman of orthopedics and rehabilitation.

The next clash in the case will occur later this month in the courtroom of county Judge Andrew H. Dowling.

That hearing will focus on Lynch’s request for a report compiled by the university’s Office of Ethics & Compliance which investigated his contention that he was removed for opposing what he says were Franklin’s attempts to pressure him to return injured players to the gridiron prematurely.

University officials are urging Dowling to quash Lynch’s subpoena seeking that report and bar its release to the doctor’s legal team.

This legal fight has had a tortuous two years. Lynch filed suit against the university, Franklin, Athletic Director Sandy Barbour and the Penn State Health defendants in 2019. His retaliation claims against the university defendants were made under the Whistleblower Law.

Penn State officials denied Lynch’s allegations. They said he was replaced in early 2019 by a former long-time team doctor from State College who would provide more immediate local medical response than Lynch, who is based in Hershey, could provide.

Last year, Dowling dismissed Lynch’s case against Franklin, Barbour and the university, finding he missed the legal deadline for filing those claims by three days. That dismissal was later upheld by state Superior Court and the state Supreme Court.

Dowling allowed Lynch to keep suing the Penn State Health defendants on adverse employment action claims.

Although the university is no longer a defendant in the case, Lynch’s subpoena for the report by Athletics Integrity Director Robert Boland has drawn it back into the fight as a peripheral player.

In their motion seeking to quash the Boland subpoena, university lawyers insist Boland’s report is off-limits to Lynch because it is protected by attorney-client privilege. Boland consulted with Penn State lawyers during his investigation, they note.

Boland began his probe after Lynch made the claims against Franklin during his exit interview, the university motion states. At that time, it became evident the doctor was going to sue over his removal, it adds.

The draft of Boland’s report hasn’t been finalized and has been labeled “confidential” by the university, Penn State’s lawyers say.

Lynch’s attorney Steven F. Marino is countering that attorney-client privilege for Boland’s report has been waived because Boland shared information from his report with at least four other people who aren’t lawyers, including Lynch and another doctor.

Marino contends as well that any “purely factual” information in Boland’s report is not shielded by attorney-client privileged and so must be released to Lynch.

He is asking Dowling to either dismiss Penn State’s challenge to the subpoena or to review the Boland report privately and then determine whether it should be released to Lynch.

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