Fighting the college that pizza bought

Tom Monaghan, who built his Domino's Pizza fortune on the promise of 30-minute delivery, opts for a slower and more circuitous route in litigation.

Just ask Kate Ernsting: Six years after being fired from Ave Maria College in Ypsilanti, which was founded by Monaghan, she's still trying to get her case in front of a jury. The wait has temporarily derailed her career and has her family facing the possibility of bankruptcy because she says "it costs money to overcome Tom Monaghan's expensive lawyers."

It's been two years since a state appeals court panel approved her case, ostensibly clearing it for trial.

The Ave Maria lawyers resisted: They appealed to the state Supreme Court, which declined to hear it. They filed a motion arguing Ave Maria is entitled to an obscure "ecclesiastic abstention" that makes the college immune from secular court review, which was denied by a judge. In other court papers, lawyers argued Ave Maria College can't pay a proposed settlement because its assets have been transferred to Ave Maria University in Florida.

The fight's beginnings

Monaghan's evolving vision of a Catholic, privately controlled Florida utopia is compelling, but so is Ernsting's experience with the Ypsilanti version of a Catholic college dystopia.

In 2004, as director of development, financial aid and public relations at the Ypsilanti college, Ernsting found herself caught between U.S. Department of Education investigators who said she was required to provide them with financial aid information and Ave Maria officials who urged her to say silent.

She says she provided information because it was the right thing to do. Days after the government told the school it would be fined for failing to comply with financial aid and certification laws, Ernsting was terminated and told her department was being eliminated.

Ultimately, the school paid almost $260,000 in fines and fees for its lapses. Since then, Ernsting has sought to prove, in court, that her firing wasn't a result of Ave Maria's move out of Michigan but was a retaliatory measure. She's suing for an undisclosed sum.

Bankruptcy possible

The fight has cost Ernsting and her family thousands of dollars and anguish. Ernsting says she and her husband are meeting with a bankruptcy lawyer. "We will probably lose our house. We may have to file for bankruptcy," she says.

But Ernsting, a devout Catholic who believes in the ideal of an ethical Catholic college, is about as likely to throw in the towel as Erin Brockovich.

"All she was trying to do was make them compliant," says Megan Bonanni, one of her lawyers. "She had a special dedication to them and, in the end, they really hurt her."

Ave Maria College's lawyer, Karl Fink, declined comment, citing ongoing litigation.

Next month, Washtenaw County Judge Timothy Connors is set to rule on whether Ave Maria University is liable for the defunct Ave Maria College's actions.

In the meantime, Ernsting works at the University of Michigan by day and is completing a master's degree in clinical research administration at night. A woman of almost baffling faith, Ernsting is still a believer, in God, her church, and -- she says -- in the American legal system.

lberman@detnews.com">lberman@detnews.com (313) 222-2032