A lawsuit alleging that former San Francisco 49ers player and current rugby star Jarryd Hayne raped a woman in San Jose in 2015 appears to be heading for a federal court trial.
A joint filing was submitted Thursday in U.S. District Court for Northern California by the attorneys for Hayne and the plaintiff, identified only as “J.V.,” stating that mediation earlier this month “was unsuccessful.”
“That parties may conduct a second attempt at mediation after some discovery has been conducted,” the filing reads.
Otherwise, the suit would go to trial in Fall 2019. In the meantime, Hayne — who is currently playing for the Parramatta Eels — is expected to give a deposition in Australia, along with two other men including former Eels teammate Krisnan Inu.
Both parties are backed by lawyers experienced in cases involving celebrity athletes. John Clune, a Colorado-based attorney, is known for representing a woman who accused NBA star Kobe Bryant of raping her at a hotel in Eagle, Colorado in 2003. Mark Baute, representing Hayne, successfully defended NBA player Derrick Rose in a high-profile sexual-assault suit two years ago.
San Jose police investigated the December 2015 rape allegation against Hayne and forwarded its case to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, which declined to charge him in October 2016, citing insufficient evidence. In December, the accuser filed a civil suit in the county, and the case was filed in federal court in part because Hayne is a foreign national no longer living in the United States.
The attorneys’ filing Thursday also stated that the plaintiff had previously requested that San Jose police preserve evidence collected in their investigation, and that they will arrange for private forensic testing of that material.
On the night of the alleged rape, the plaintiff and her friends met Hayne and his friends at a bar for after-dinner drinks. She became heavily intoxicated and Hayne took her back to his apartment in San Jose. According to the suit, the plaintiff’s final memories were falling face down on a bed, seeing a light from a hallway and continued sharp vaginal pain. The woman contends she awoke the next morning in a large pool of blood naked, alone and still in significant vaginal pain.
In his formal legal response where he sought to have the suit dismissed in Superior Court, Hayne contends that the plaintiff followed him out of the bar, ordered an Uber ride with his phone, and “willingly engaged in sexual interaction that did not involve sexual intercourse.” It later asserts that the woman “had a cordial conversation with defendant’s friend the morning after the alleged incident and left defendant’s apartment of her own volition, and did not report, or claim any injuries to anyone after the alleged incident.”
The lawsuit states that the plaintiff was a virgin at the time and was afraid to come forward for several months, and eventually sought medical treatment for continued vaginal pain in April 2016. The hospital concluded that she had been sexually assaulted and contacted San Jose police as required by law.
Hayne’s defense objected to the notion the encounter between him and the plaintiff was not consensual with a statement that the “plaintiff gave implied consent to all of the acts complained of in her complaint.”
