A St. John’s University alum has lost his bid to claw back a $300,000 endowment he says was being distributed to undeserving students.
California lawyer Roger Lindmark established the endowment with settlement funds he was awarded as a plaintiff in an interest-calculation case against American Express and as an attorney in a gas anti-trust case.
In 2010, he and St. John’s agreed the funds would be distributed to rising seniors who complete a substantial summer research project on business ethics.
But Lindmark demanded the school return the gift after finding most scholarship recipients either failed to complete their projects or conducted research that had nothing to do with business ethics.
“St. John’s has brought this all on themselves because there’s no question the fund’s been mismanaged,” he said Monday.
The Collegeville, Minn. school in May asked a Stearns County District Court judge to confirm it was properly administering the endowment.
St. John’s argued only the attorney general’s office has the authority to enforce how a charitable gift is administered. The office declined to involve itself in the dispute.
St. John’s won the case in December when a judge rejected Lindmark’s legal argument that the endowment represented a contract between him and his alma mater.
On Friday, the judge in a parallel federal court case brought by Lindmark also ruled in the school’s favor.
U.S. District Court Judge Wilhelmina Wright dismissed Lindmark’s complaint because the federal case raised the same legal questions as were decided in state court.
Lindmark said he’s appealing both rulings. The written agreement that established the endowment “specifically says this is not a trust,” he said.
Further, Lindmark said, the endowment never was filed as a trust with the attorney general.
Lindmark said Wright should have paused the federal case while he appealed the state court decision.