Cawthorne Petitions Court to Bar Urban League Suit

Former San Diego Urban League President Herb Cawthorne Wednesday asked a Superior Court judge to halt the black service agency’s lawsuit against him, contending that the Urban League breached his contract by not first submitting their bitter financial dispute to arbitration.

Cawthorne, in documents filed Wednesday, asked the judge to impose unspecified monetary penalties on the Urban League, claiming that the filing of the lawsuit April 6 “appears to have been motivated solely by a desire to poison the community against me, pre-try the case and injure my reputation.”

A hearing in the case is scheduled for July 6.

The Urban League is seeking more than $25,000 in damages from Cawthorne for allegedly diverting more than $13,000 of its money to personal use, including the purchase of airline tickets, hotel rooms, meals, auto expenses, dental work and a $1,395 painting. The Urban League also accused Cawthorne of giving away at least one of two 1988 Super Bowl tickets purchased for a fund-raiser with $2,400 of the organization’s funds.

Cawthorne--who has conceded “poor judgments” and admitted giving both Super Bowl tickets to a friend when efforts to use them for a fund-raising event fell through--suddenly resigned as head of the prominent black social service organization June 7 amid circumstances that remained mysterious until the lawsuit was filed last month.

Urban League attorney Beatrice Kemp, who drew up Cawthorne’s employment contract, said Wednesday that the agreement requires arbitration of a dispute only if one party requests it in writing. Neither Cawthorne nor the Urban League ever made such a request, she said.

Contract terms cited in Cawthorne’s filing Wednesday say that any dispute between him and the Urban League “shall on the written request of either party served on the other be submitted to arbitration.”

Cawthorne also contended in the filing that he resigned “under pressure, without time to consult with my legal counsel and without due process of the law.” In a news conference April 11, Cawthorne said the Urban League actually owes him two months pay because it failed to wait the 60 days required by his contract before accepting his resignation.