By Mike Harris Friday, August 1st, 2025

A motion to dismiss the 2021 breach of contract lawsuit against California Lutheran University and former presidents Chris Kimball and Lori Varlotta has been filed Ventura County Superior Court, by attorneys for former Congressman Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley).

The filing could be a precursor to a settlement in the case, a stated goal of CLU President John Nunes, who took over as interim president a year ago and was recently named to the position permanently. A trial originally scheduled for later this month was postponed until October in order to give talks more time.

Gallegly’s lead attorney, Matthew Umhofer, filed the dismissal request on behalf of the former congressman and his wife Janice, another plaintiff in the case, on July 31. 

It’s not clear when the court will rule on the request and the Business Times has learned that a settlement also must be approved by the CLU Board of Regents.

Gallegly declined to comment but he and Nunes have been complimentary of each other in recent days.

Varlotta, who left Cal Lutheran in 2024 and is now president of Antioch University, issued a press release that said, “The dismissal ends Dr. Varlotta’s four-year legal entanglement that critics now call a ‘politically fueled character assassination.’”

Varlotta has vocally complained about a letter writing campaign on behalf of Gallegly and the Gallegly Center at CLU. She said the campaign was designed to publicly discredit Varlotta.

The Gallegly’s lawsuit alleges Cal Lutheran failed to fully establish on its Thousand Oaks campus the Elton and Janice Gallegly Center for Public Service and Civic Engagement with 26 years’ worth of congressional archives.

Gallegly is Ventura County’s longest-serving member of Congress – from 1987 through 2013 – and was the first elected mayor of Simi Valley, which incorporated in 1969. 

Located in Cal Lutheran’s Pearson Library, the center initially included a replica of Gallegly’s Washington D.C. office, but the university later removed it.

The office had been intended to be the center’s main attraction.

But Varlotta said at the time that it hadn’t been much of a draw.

Furthermore, she said, it had been displayed at the university’s discretion.

Gallegly’s team said in a May press release that “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 announced that the Gallegly’s had retained Umhofer.

The lawsuit, which also alleges breach of fiduciary duty, seeks a full accounting of how the university has used the more than $1 million raised by the Gallegly’s to support the center.

Ventura County Superior Court Judge 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.

A jury trial in the case is scheduled to begin Oct. 27.

Varlotta this month became president of Antioch’s five campuses nationwide, including one in Santa Barbara.

She is also executive vice president of Antioch’s Coalition for the Common Good.