The family of late Joe Paterno, Penn State football coach, and several campus community members including faculty and ex players filed a civil suit Thursday against the NCAA to annul penalties imposed against the university regarding a child sex abuse case involving Paterno's assistant coach Jerry Sandusky.

The suit claims that the NCAA breached its own rules in administration of the penalties and did not entertain any appeal in the case involving former Nittany Lions assistant football coach Sandusky. It also says that NCAA was hasty in imposing punishment.

The penalties were introduced following a probe report by former FBI director Louis Freeh that partly blamed Paterno and three school officials for conspiring to conceal allegations against Sandusky.

The lawsuit critiques Freeh's report as an 'unreliable rush to injustice,' and that the NCAA inappropriately banked on the findings instead of conducting its own investigation and delivered its sentence in less than two weeks after Freeh's results were reported.

"This case is further proof that the NCAA has lost all sense of its mission. If there was ever a situation that demanded meticulous review and a careful adherence to NCAA rules and guidelines, this was it. Instead, the NCAA placed a premium on speed over accuracy and precipitous action over due process," Wick Sollers, the attorney representing the plaintiffs, said.

"An illegally imposed penalty that is based on false assumptions and secret discussions is a disservice to the victims and everyone else who cares about the truth of the Sandusky scandal," Sollers said. "This matter will never be resolved until the full facts are reviewed in a lawful and transparent manner."

The named defendants are the NCAA, NCAA President Mark Emmert and Oregon State University President Ed Ray.

This is the third lawsuit since the university suffered strict sanctions including sharp scholarship reductions, a four-year bowl ban and a $60 million fine. In addition, the NCAA erased 111 wins under Paterno, which was part of his college record of 409 career victories.

Previously, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett filed a trust lawsuit in federal court and Jake Corman, chair of the state's Senate Appropriations Committee, filed suit to make sure the fines paid by the university were diverted to causes within the state's borders.

Sandusky, a former longtime assistant football coach under Paterno, was convicted in June 2012 for molesting 10 boys over 15 years. He was found guilty of 45 out of 48 allegations against him. In July, Paterno was accused of concealing allegations against Sandusky. The management dismissed Paterno in Nov. 2011, just two months before his death. He died of lung cancer at the age of 85.

Last summer, the Paterno family sought to appeal NCAA sanctions against Penn State's football program and the university. The appeal alleged that the NCAA's punitive damages were taken in a 'fundamentally inappropriate and unprecedented manner.'