re: Turns out Nutt actually has a case against Ole Miss and will get paid.

Nutt's damages from noneconomic claims, all of his claims not directly related to his lost wages and the breach of contract, excluding punitive damages, are capped at $1m. He's gonna have a fun time showing lost wages I'd think too. How does prove that he would've been making coaching money (keep in mind he wasn't unemployed, he just wasn't coaching) but for the injury caused to him by the various defendants? Not to mention, he could've kept receiving coaching money from Ole Miss until this year had he not taken a $4.3 million dollar lump sum in January, 2013. Can he demonstrate that he should've been making Fun Belt money, much less SEC/P5 money? Even before this alleged smear campaign began in 2014, Nutt left his last two coaching jobs under acrimonious terms and had an assistant coach get show-caused for academic fraud. The Saunders stuff broke in 2013, and that definitely happened under Nutt. Nutt was fired in November, 2011. Nutt's buyout paid him through 2016-2017. I'm not sure why a major university didn't rush to hire a guy loathed by his two most recent employers and who was the head coach overseeing a guy who got blackballed for academic fraud.

Punitive damages are on a sliding scale, but Nutt would likely need to succeed on all his claims to demonstrate the merit of punitive damages. If some of Nutt's claims fail, I'm not sure someone who had a job directly related to his role as a college football coach, as an analyst, would get awarded punitive damages. Unless Nutt can definitively demonstrate Ole Miss acted deliberately, maliciously, and recklessly with a total disregard for Hootie's wellbeing, I don't see him getting punitive damages, especially since he's not blameless in the tarnishment that's befallen Ole Miss during the whole NCAA debacle. If the contract was breached, Nutt will be awarded nominal damages for breach of contract. That claim is cut and dry. Likewise Nutt might get compensatory damages for embarrassment and/or emotional distress, but the dude got $4.3 million dollars to get the hell out of Dodge, so I wouldn't expect him to hit $1m on his claims. I mean, what greater embarrassment could he suffer than captaining a 49 point blowout at home when your opponent was being merciful to stop at 52-3? He coached an effort where the opposing coach called for the kneel with a full 5 minutes left in the game, and then he got blown out by his other arch rival 31-3, and he got paid for all of it despite questionably performing his duties as coach.