Institute abandons lawsuit; Hut withdraws counter-suit

The Institute for Advanced Study dropped its lawsuit against professor Piet Hut last week after more than three months in court, according to Institute Director Phillip Griffiths. Hut has also dropped his counter lawsuit against the IAS.

"Although the Institute continues to believe in the validity of its position, in the end its desire to resolve the legal question is far outweighed by its commitment to preserve the Institute's highly productive scholarly environment," Griffiths said in a statement. "For this reason, and because we have recently entered again into discussions with Dr. Hut, the Institute has withdrawn its legal complaint."

The IAS lawsuit cannot be refiled in court, according to Hut. "They completely dropped the lawsuit but in a technical manner called 'with prejudice,' " he said. "That means they can never file the same suit again."

Though Griffiths' statement says the Institute has reopened negotiations, Hut said he has not yet been contacted.

"You can always have discussions. Since they dropped the lawsuit, they have not contacted my lawyers or myself, but we're open for discussions," he said, adding, "Any discussions we might have in the future would be independent of the lawsuit."