Former UCI official wins lawsuit

-- Lolita Harper

A former UC Irvine official, who alleged the school wrongfully

terminated him, won a $132,000 settlement Thursday.

Larry Givens, who was the assistant vice chancellor of facilities

management at UCI, claimed the school fired him after he refused to

approve funding of the Village Theater renovation project.

Givens disagreed that $1 million in deferred maintenance funding could

be legally spent on the fine arts theater project. He filed a

whistle-blower report and was subsequently fired, he claimed.

The former UCI employee asked for $1 million in his suit but the jury

ordered the university to pay only a fraction of that. University

officials have not decided whether they will appeal the decision.