A Douglas County judge Wednesday approved an arbitration panel’s ruling that the former head of the Kansas University Alumni Association couldn’t sue the association for firing him.

The decision was, in a way, a welcome one for former association director Fred Williams.

That’s because Williams and his attorneys believed that the case, in which Williams accused his former employer of breach of contract and defamation, should have never gone to an arbitrator in the first place.

But because of the wording of state laws that govern the arbitration process, Williams couldn’t appeal Judge Michael Malone’s ruling to send the case to an arbitrator until the entire arbitration process was complete.

“He was required to go through the process to get to that point,” Joe Kronawitter, Williams’ attorney, said at a hearing Wednesday.

Williams first filed the lawsuit in 2004 after the association fired him, seeking more than $2.2 million in damages. But Malone ruled that instead of hearing the case in open court, a panel of three arbitrators would decide whether the case had merit.

Williams protested, saying that his contract didn’t require the case to be arbitrated in private. The purpose of arbitration, according to the contract, was to preserve confidentiality and to protect business reputations.

But Malone decided on arbitration anyway, and after hearing testimony from 31 witnesses and viewing more than 100 exhibits, the panel decided last summer that Williams didn’t have a case.

But attorneys for Williams still couldn’t appeal the case until Malone ruled on the panel’s findings. Malone had 90 days to do so before the window to appeal closed.

So Kronawitter filed a motion to vacate the arbitrators’ decision.

Kronawitter said in court that the filing was simply forcing Malone’s hand, so to speak, so that Williams could file an appeal within the prescribed 90-day time frame.

“I think all parties are aware that the issue is going to be raised on appeal,” Kronawitter said.

But Larry Ward, an attorney for the association who called the motion “inappropriate,” filed a complaint asking the court to penalize Kronawitter for filing a motion that both sides agreed didn’t apply to the case.

But Malone denied Ward’s complaint Wednesday, agreeing that the state law has some problems.

“I do agree there is some kind of procedural defect in the statute,” Malone said.

Malone then approved the arbitrators’ ruling, a decision that will likely set the stage for Williams to appeal the decision to go to arbitration in the first place.

If his appeal is successful and the case goes back to court, attorneys would have to basically restate their cases for a judge, including calling and interviewing witnesses and examining other evidence – something that both sides spent 10 days doing for the arbitration panel last year.

The association’s board of directors fired Williams in May after he’d held KU’s top alumni job for 21 years. He claimed he was never given a specific reason, and in August he sued for more than $2.2 million, alleging breach of contract and defamation.

In a written response to the suit, the alumni association said Williams had been warned to “cease his negative conduct” toward KU Chancellor Robert Hemenway and other university leaders.

The association also accused Williams of failing to properly supervise employees and of disregarding admonitions that he not retaliate against employees he suspected of being “whistle-blowers.”