Nike and Alberto Salazar have settled a $20 million lawsuit filed by distance runner Mary Cain that alleged emotional and physical abuse at the hands of the coach and a lack of oversight by the sportswear giant.
Terms of the settlement were not disclosed. The lawsuit had been scheduled for an important hearing Monday afternoon.
Attorneys for Nike and Salazar declined comment. Nike spokespeople did not immediately return an email or a text message. Attorneys for Cain did not immediately return phone calls.
The online docket for the lawsuit, filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court, notes the case settled. A clerk for the judge said a Nike attorney notified the court yesterday that the case had been resolved.
The resolution of the lawsuit ends one of Nike’s highest-profile legal battles. Cain’s lawsuit came on the heels of explosive news reports about an alleged “boys’ club” culture at the company and a doping scandal involving Salazar, a once-celebrated track coach whose deep ties to Nike included having a building on the company’s campus named after him.
Cain, a highly touted runner whose accomplishments include winning the 2014 junior world championship in the 3000 meters, ran for Nike’s elite Oregon Project, which Salazar coached, from 2013 to 2016.
In 2019, Cain told The New York Times she was “emotionally and physically abused by a system designed by Alberto and endorsed by Nike.” She spoke out shortly after other decorated Nike female runners Alysia Montaño and Allyson Felix criticized the company’s lack of maternity benefits for sponsored athletes.
About a month after Cain spoke out, Nike employees protested in support of her.
Salazar denied the allegations, including telling Sports Illustrated his “foremost goal as a coach was to promote athletic performance in a manner that supported the good health and well-being of all my athletes.”
In 2021, Cain filed the $20 million lawsuit against Salazar and Nike, characterizing him as a controlling coach whose abusive tactics included inappropriate comments about her body and humiliating her by making her stand on a scale in front of others. Nike, Cain argued, didn’t do enough to protect her.
“Companies are responsible for the behavior of their managers,” Kristen West McCall, a Portland lawyer who represented Cain, previously told The Oregonian/OregonLive. “Nike’s job was to ensure that Salazar was not neglecting and abusing the athletes he coached.”
Attorneys for Nike and Salazar denied the claims, including in a recent 48-page motion for summary judgement, a legal move to resolve a case in its early stages. In the motion, the attorneys argued Cain’s allegations are “demonstrably false, and even contradicted by her own testimony and public statements.” Attorneys for Nike and Salazar also said her claims were barred because of a two-year statute of limitations.
Cain’s lawyers responded to the motion in late September, but the document is not open to public inspection because of a protective order in the case. In a public filing two weeks ago, Cain’s lawyers said they needed more time to respond to the motion because discovery wasn’t complete.
The Nike Oregon Project was disbanded in 2019. Salazar has been permanently banned from working with U.S. track and field athletes because of sexual misconduct. His name was removed from the building on Nike’s campus after the ban was imposed.
In 2020, Cain returned to competition.
While Cain’s lawsuit is resolved, Nike continues to defend itself against a separate, and more sweeping, lawsuit that alleges sex discrimination.
– Matthew Kish; mkish@oregonian.com
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story gave an incorrect reason for Alberto Salazar’s lifetime ban. He was permanently banned for sexual misconduct. The story has been updated.