Gallegly retains veteran trial attorney in suit against CLU
Former congressman Elton Gallegly has retained veteran trial attorney Matthew Umhofer as lead counsel in his breach of contract lawsuit against California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks.
Gallegly’s team made the announcement May 5, saying Umhofer’s appointment “signals a new and aggressive phase in the litigation.”
A former federal prosecutor, Umhofer has tried federal and state cases and argued complex appeals nationwide.
“This is a case about promises made and broken,” Umhofer said in a press release.
Gallegly, a Simi Valley Republican who served in Congress from 1987 through 2013, filed the breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty lawsuit against the university and now-former presidents Chris Kimball and Lori Varlotta in Nov. 2021.
The Ventura County Superior Court suit, in which Gallegly’s wife Janice is also a plaintiff, alleges Cal Lutheran failed to fully establish on its campus the Elton and Janice Gallegly Center for Public Service and Civic Engagement with 26 years’ worth of congressional archives.
The center initially included a replica of Gallegly’s Washington D.C. office, but the university later removed it.
Gallegly is Ventura County’s longest-serving member of Congress and was the first elected mayor of Simi Valley, which incorporated in 1969.
“Despite repeated assurances and formal commitments, the university has failed to fulfill its obligations to the congressman, the university students, and the broader public the center was meant to serve,” the press release says.
The complaint also seeks a full accounting of how the university has used more than $1 million raised by the Gallegly’s to support the center.
“Congressman Gallegly dedicated over three decades of public service to this region and entrusted his life’s work to Cal Lutheran with the expectation that it would be preserved as a non-partisan center for the study of congressional processes,” Umhofer said.
He added that, “we are eager to fight to ensure his legacy is honored and to aggressively pursue justice on behalf of the congressman and Mrs. Gallegly.”
The judge in the case, Henry Walsh, in December 2024 handed the university a win, reversing his intended decision that there was a contractual basis for the establishment of Gallegly’s replica office.
