The University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa announced Wednesday that it had received a settlement in excess of $14.5-million from the estate of the late Tampa Bay Buccaneers owner Hugh Culverhouse. The payment resolves a series of lawsuits and countersuits that had pitted the university against the estate and several members of the Culverhouse family.
In settling the dispute, the university agreed to drop its claim to a 20-per-cent share of the Culverhouse Family Foundation, a charitable organization Mr. Culverhouse had created that now has assets of about $65-million. The estimated value of the overall estate exceeds $380-million.
The university’s president, Andrew Sorensen, said in a statement that he was pleased that “the objectives stated in Mr. Culverhouse’s will have been achieved.”
“Mr. Culverhouse,” the president added, “was one of the university’s most successful alumni and a remarkably generous supporter.”
A 1941 graduate of the university -- and six years later, of its law school -- Mr. Culverhouse made his fortune as a tax lawyer and real-estate developer, although he was probably best known for his National Football League team.
The court fights had their roots in a 1992 pledge by Mr. Culverhouse of $10-million to Alabama’s business school. At the time, he said part of the gift would be paid out over several years, and the rest from his estate. In return, the university agreed to name its business school for him.
He died in 1994, having fulfilled only about $1-million of the pledge.
Before his death, Mr. Culverhouse had also written a letter asking the trustees of his foundation to give 20 per cent of its assets to the university after he and his wife had died.
In May 1997, his widow, Joy McCann Culverhouse -- who had met her husband while they were students -- sued the university to cancel the pledge to the business school. Mrs. Culverhouse, who was also challenging parties involved with managing her husband’s estate, said that the university had failed to rename the school as promised.
Soon after, Alabama filed its own suit, seeking to collect the remaining $9-million. It renamed the school, now the Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration, in June 1997.
The university was also sued, in July 1997, by the trustees of the family foundation, one of whom is Mr. Culverhouse’s son, Hugh F. Culverhouse, Jr., who disputed the university’s rights to any of the fund’s assets.
In a statement Wednesday, Mr. Culverhouse said, “I regret it took a while to negotiate certain aspects of the gift, but I’m pleased with the result.”
Under the settlement, all lawsuits concerning the pledge and the family foundation will be dropped. Mrs. Culverhouse and the trustees have also authorized the university to remove her late husband’s name from the college of business if officials so choose.
A university spokeswoman said that no name change was imminent, but that the settlement would open up a new avenue for fund raising, if another, larger donor were to express interest in having the school named for him or her.
The university said the total amount of the settlement -- $16-million, which includes the $1-million previously received, and interest on that amount -- makes the donation the single largest cash gift in the university’s history.
Wednesday’s joint announcement is not the final chapter in the case, however. Come September, Mr. Sorensen, the university president, plans to honor the Culverhouses and other trustees associated with the estate at a special campus celebration.
