A lawsuit filed by former Cape Fear Community College president Ted Spring will proceed to trial after a federal judge denied a motion to dismiss it, according to an attorney representing Spring.

Spring's attorney, Gary Shipman of Shipman & Wright, filed the lawsuit in March 2015, following Spring's abrupt resignation after a trustees meeting in January that year. Before Wright filed the suit, Spring had requested to be reinstated in the post, alleging that the board had forced him into resigning.

The motion to dismiss the lawusit came from attorneys representing CFCC's Board of Trustees. U.S. District Court Judge Terrence W. Boyle on Friday concluded that he could not find from the evidence submitted that Spring’s resignation was voluntary.

Efforts to reach a spokesperson for CFCC were not immediately successful Monday afternoon. 

"On the evening of January 22, 2015, when Dr. Spring alleges that he was forced to resign, 'the implication was clear that plaintiff could either resign or the board would seek to terminate his employment,'" according to a news release Monday from Shipman.

The terms of Spring's three-year contract, which started in August 2012, mean a jury can decide whether Spring's "resignation was so involuntary that it amounted to a constructive discharge … triggering the protections of the due process clause,” Shipman's release said.

The court also found that Spring is entitled to proceed to trial on his claims that the CFCC Board of Trustees "violated his constitutionally guaranteed and protected liberty interests" through statements by board members and in the media.

Boyle's order said, "Although self-serving conclusory statements will not alone create a geninue issue of material fact, the he said/she said nature of evidence regarding [Spring's] actions, statements made by board members, and the news media are sufficient here to establish that a genuine issue of material fact exists as to the truth of statements made publicly by board members following [Spring's] resignation."

The order said the Board of Trustees contends "that statements made by them to the media in the wake of [Spring's] resignation were true." 

A trial date has not yet been set.