Former Colorado Buffaloes safety Shilo Sanders just got out of trouble with the authorities after his vehicle was towed days ago. He has secured another legal win, as a lawsuit filed against him last year has been dropped by the company.

According to USA TODAY, the firm Barnes & Thornburg LLP decided to drop its lawsuit against Shilo Sanders. The lawsuit was reported to have been called off “voluntarily and without prejudice.”

Last November, the law firm sued the former Tampa Bay Buccaneers with claims that he owed the firm a sum of $164,285. Despite sending invoices, they did not get a payment. As a result, the firm filed a lawsuit in a federal court in Dallas against the son of the Colorado Buffaloes’ head coach for the amount, with additional attorneys’ fees. The debt was owed to the firm after they provided Sanders services “in connection with his personal injury matter and his bankruptcy proceedings.”

Despite the news, Shilo Sanders is not entirely free. Being called off voluntarily and without prejudice means that the lawsuit could still be raised again in the future, if the firm so wishes.

Had he settled the firm, the case would have been dismissed “with prejudice,” and the firm would have no such right to raise the lawsuit against him anymore.

The lawsuit was filed months after Shilo Sanders went undrafted in the 2025 NFL Draft, following his final season in college football with the Colorado Buffaloes. He was soon signed as an undrafted free agent by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but was cut during the 2025 preseason by the franchise. With no path for him in the NFL, Sanders is now uploading content on social media and figuring out where life takes him next. But while he does that, there is a bigger lawsuit he is battling.

Shilo Sanders lawsuit since 2016

After being freed from this lawsuit – at least for now- Shilo Sanders is scheduled to go to trial on another case on August 31. Sanders was sued in 2016 by John Darjean, a former security guard at his former school in Dallas. Darjean had sued both Shilo and his parents in 2016, but his parents were dismissed from the case in 2019.

Darjean sued Sanders for assault after he was attacked for attempting to confiscate his cellphone as a student, a situation in which Sanders claimed he acted in self-defense. The guard alleged that the altercation caused permanent spinal and neurological injuries. However, Shilo did not show up for the trial in 2022, which resulted in a default judgment, where he was ordered to pay the former guard the sum of $11.89 million.

In response, Shilo filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in an attempt to avoid the debt. But Darjean has been contesting the bankruptcy filing ever since, putting forth several pieces of evidence against Sanders. The aim is to prevent Shilo from legally erasing the debt, as Darjean has noted that the debt came as a result of a “willful and malicious injury”.

Darjean revealed that he would have settled the case out of court for a smaller amount. But Shilo’s father called him a “real life grifter” in a 2016 interview, which has forced him to pursue the case till the very end.