This will clarify a section titled Ryan v. CIF within the “Big Legal Wins” feature in the August 2003 edition of San Diego Metropolitan.

While the Australian student at the center of this case was denied sports eligibility by the California Interscholastic Federation, the California Superior Court disagreed. As a result, John Ryan was deemed eligible and did eventually play high school sports. Administrative efforts by the school to prevent Ryan from playing resulted in a 1999 $125,000 judgment to Ryan against the school.

While Ryan was a skilled athlete, the Superior Court judge who heard the matter ruled that evidence presented in the case showed his primary interest in attending school in the United States was to be better prepared academically for a U.S. college, not to secure an athletic scholarship.

The case was appealed to the Fourth District Court of Appeal, but not to the U.S. Supreme Court. After the California Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal on a different aspect of the case that did not deal directly with Ryan’s eligibility, Ryan’s attorney told a local newspaper he planned to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, but no such appeal was ever made, contrary to last month’s report.

Moreover, Ryan did submit a request for athletic eligibility to the CIF before the school year began and received initial approval. The attorney quoted in the article on this issue was suggesting that the athletic request should have been made by Ryan’s parents directly to the CIF before Ryan moved to San Diego from Australia and before he enrolled in the school.

Ryan’s lawsuit against the CIF involved other decisions by the Fourth District Court Of Appeal. In one ruling the court said the CIF could not again stop Ryan from playing athletics since it already had allowed him to practice and waived its rights to attack the lower court’s ruling. The court denied Ryan attorney fees awarded by a lower court. In the second decision, the appeals court ruled “substantial evidence supports the CIF-SID’s undue influence finding” that the school had improperly helped Ryan play athletics. (The state Supreme Court denied a petition by Ryan in the undue influence ruling.) The appeals court also ruled that the CIF’s bylaws were constitutional and struck down Ryan’s attorney fees and costs. In another lawsuit by Ryan for money damages against the CIF, the CIF received a unanimous jury verdict in its favor and was awarded costs against Ryan. Ryan’s appeal was denied.

San Diego Metropolitan regrets the error and any confusion.