An Alabama jury determined on Thursday that The New York Times defamed a college basketball player in a 2023 article that incorrectly reported he was at the scene of a deadly shooting in Tuscaloosa.
The eight-person jury awarded $9.25 million in damages, after a nine-day trial in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.
Kai Spears, who played for the University of Alabama men’s basketball team, sued The Times in 2023, accusing it of libel and “false light” invasion of privacy. He claimed the article, which mistakenly reported he was a passenger in a car at the scene of the shooting, had caused him emotional distress and forever linked him with a murder. Three other basketball players from the school were present at the shooting, which killed a 23-year-old mother.
The Times corrected the article and added an editor’s note after Mr. Spears filed his lawsuit, which disclosed the identity of the passenger in the car for the first time.
The Times had not lost a defamation lawsuit brought in the United States over one of its articles in more than 50 years. … Read More
For more than 50 years, the Clemente family has used the Roberto Clemente trademark to preserve his legacy. The Clementes license the trademark sparingly, using it for causes like the Clemente Museum in Pittsburgh and the Roberto Clemente Foundation, which honor the life he built.
Puerto Rico wanted to capitalize on his brand. In 2022, the commonwealth forced cash-strapped Puerto Ricans to pay for commemorative license plates with Clemente’s name and image, despite the family’s objections. The government pocketed roughly $15 million from the trademark and paid the Clementes nothing. Worse, angry Puerto Ricans blamed the family for the new fee—even though the Clementes had opposed it from the start. . . . The Constitution’s Takings Clause says the government must pay “just compensation” when it takes private property. The rule has long been simple: The government must pay for what it takes.
This should have been an easy case based on that principle. Puerto Rico must pay because it took the Roberto Clemente trademark for its own use. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit ruled for Puerto Rico earlier this year by drawing an artificial line. The court held that the simple pay-for-what-you-take rule protects only tangible property such as land, cars, and crops. Intangible property like trademarks, trade secrets, and patents, the court said, doesn’t deserve the same protection.
That distinction makes no sense. The plain text of the Takings Clause itself prohibits the government from taking “private property” for public use without just compensation. As the Supreme Court has recognized in Horne v. Department of Agriculture in 2015, the Constitution protects private property “without any distinction between different types.” … Read More
Yesterday, D’Juan Epps, apparently a fundraiser for Vanderbilt’s official student-athlete name, image, and likeness organization and an “associate director” within the university athletic department, filed a lawsuit seeking the recovery of unpaid fundraising commissions.
Epps’ suit, filed in the Superior Court of Fulton County, Georgia, names Student Athlete NIL LLC (“SANIL”) as the sole defendant and describes work performed in connection with Anchor Impact. According to a university website, Anchor Impact is “the official collective for Vanderbilt Athletics.” SANIL is a Delaware company registered to do business in Georgia, apparently a nationwide vendor assisting schools with the administration of their official NIL programs. SANIL’s principal office in Georgia appears to be a residence in Marietta associated with Susan Gout, a sports marketing professional. Records identify Gout, a Penn State alum, as SANIL’s registered agent.
An undated interview describes Epps as Anchor Impact’s “general manager,” and it quotes his description of Anchor Impact’s “join[ing] forces with [SANIL] in an initiative that will significantly impact the lives of Vanderbilt’s student-athletes. The world of college athletics is evolving, and this partnership will empower these young men and women to navigate the complexities of name, image and likeness opportunities while fostering their personal and professional growth.” Two years ago, Epps went on camera to discuss how Anchor Impact helped student-athletes partner with community nonprofit causes.
In his lawsuit, Epps alleges he raised about $3.5 million for Anchor Impact; that a contract between him and SANIL entitled him to uncapped commissions on that amount; and that SANIL did not pay him his full commission. He further alleges that, while he is a resident of Murfreesboro, business transactions relevant to his case occurred in Georgia. Records indicate that SANIL has not yet been served with or appeared in the lawsuit.
Vanderbilt athletic recruiting was in the legal news last year, when breakout star transfer quarterback Diego Pavia scored a preliminary court victory allowing him another year of eligibility with the Commodores in 2025. While the NCAA seemingly acquiesced to the ruling, voluntarily extending its effect to other, similarly situated student-athletes, it later appealed, seeking reversal. That appeal remains pending.
The potential consequences of the dispute between Epps and SANIL would seem to be narrower than those of Pavia’s case, but we still will keep an eye on it.
If you thought 2025 was the year ALDLAND let Rob Manfred off the hook, you thought wrong. See above and at MLB.tv for access to what’s becoming a tradition unlike any other: MLB.TV briefly goes on sale in early May for an assertedly steep discount that more often than not hooks your correspondent but also compels him to stir up an old screed about the league’s poor media conduct. Before you click over there to grab the deal, recall this commentary on the same offering from 2022:
Readers of this website know that this author is among the last people on Earth who would go out of his way to promote an MLBAM business decision, but here you are, reading a post by me notifying you that MLB.tv is on sale today for a loosely speaking fair-ish price.
Of course, this occasion mostly serves as a reminder of MLB’s callous media-distribution practices. Six years ago, the league settled an antitrust lawsuit attacking things like its telecast blackout policy and centralized MLB.tv product by agreeing to make pricing and offering concessions to fans. Specifically, the seasonal price of the full MLB.tv package at that time would drop from $129.99 to $109.99, and the league would create a new, single-team package at a seasonal price of $84.99. These prices were to remain fixed for five years (i.e., through the 2020 season), subject to annual increases only up to the higher of three percent or the rate of inflation.
Now, that settlement agreement has expired, and MLB is seizing the opportunity to undo its effects. Most obviously, across-the-board pricing is up, doubly insulting as the league simultaneously excludes games from the full MLB.tv package for the benefit of its new partnerships with NBC and Apple.
Perhaps even more underhanded, however, is the soft killing of the single-team MLB.tv package. When first offered, the single-team option was priced at seventy-seven-percent of the full package price, then a twenty-five-dollar difference. MLB now has aggressively closed that gap. At today’s sale pricing, for example, the cost of the single-team option has jumped to eighty-six-percent of the full package price, just a ten-dollar difference. Stated otherwise, someone considering a single-team package can receive a thirty-fold increase in programming for just ten additional dollars. “Even you dummies know that’s a good deal,” fans hear Rob Manfred saying in their heads, even as they wonder why it doesn’t quite feel like a deal. The move to neutralize the single-team package feels like a purely spiteful move designed to achieve the functional undoing of one of the settlement agreement’s most visible achievements without any meaningful cost savings to MLB.
As I have been writing here for years, the message should be a simple one: “Rather than changing the game he wants people to watch . . . Manfred ought to change the way people can watch the game, obviously by making it easier for them to do so.” For how much longer can Manfred continue to squeeze baseball’s fans– including, as a recent example, Padres fans required to purchase yet another streaming service to watch this morning’s Peacock-exclusive game against the Atlanta Braves beginning at 8:35 am San Diego time– remains to be seen.
As the traditional regional sports network model of television crumbles, Manfred has not hesitated to recapture territory once ceded to independent providers and the outside revenue streams they created. The result, for now, is that MLB.tv now includes in-market offerings for ten teams: the Athletics, Diamondbacks, Dodgers, Guardians, Giants, Mets, Padres, Phillies, Rockies, and Twins. I naturally hesitate to call this a sign of progress, since the intent does not appear to be in the direction of eliminating blackouts, for example. But maybe it’s a start, and at least people in Sacramento have another way to follow their newfound MLB team.
It’s easy to forget that athletics organizing entities, and especially in light of their popularity and rhetoric the NCAA, NFL, and MLB, do not act and regulate their respective sports with the force of actual law. (In fact, they in some sense operate outside the law thanks to formal and informal antitrust exemptions.) During baseball’s meltdown over Barry Bonds’ superhuman ascension in the early aughts, you could be forgiven if you weren’t sure whether steroids were illegal illegal or merely MLB “illegal.” The NFL also has done an effective job of coopting this officious language into its in-sport vernacular as well (e.g., “illegal touching” having quite different meanings on and off the field). All of these groups have “committees” that issue “rules” and “regulations” just like real government agencies!
In other words, try as they sometimes might to convince us otherwise, sports-organizing bodies are not the literal government.
That didn’t stop Roger Goodell from trying, though.
In the leadup to Super Bowl LVII, held this past Sunday on a public golf course in Glendale, Arizona, the City of Phoenix, probably totally of their own accord and without any outside influence, suggestion, or pressure, established a downtown “Special Promotional and Civic Event area . . . to support events and activities related to Super Bowl LVII.” Within that area of town, the City granted the NFL the real, actual legal approval authority over signage or displays that might appear on private property. Move over, Peyton Manning; Goodell’s a real sheriff now!
Or at least he was. An owner of property inside the NFL Dictatorial Enclave sued and, days before the Super Bowl, prevailed in court: Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Bradley Astrowsky ruled that the establishment of the special zone was unconstitutional for multiple reasons, including because it impermissibly infringed on free-speech rights and was an improper delegation of government authority to the NFL.
Believing he was freed of his unwanted NFL overlords, that property owner, Bramley Paulin, was able to install signs on his property advertising some sort of hardware product. Success, right?
Was this a covert NFL censureship operation by extrajudicial means? Paulin filed a report with the Phoenix Police Department, but will the municipality Paulin just beat in court investigate vigorously? Was the breaching of Paulin’s fence especially bad press for the MAXguard, the fence-related hardware Paulin apparently was attempting to advertise? You have the facts, now you be the judge. Or Judge Astrowsky can be the judge. It probably makes more sense that he be the judge.
Readers of this website know that this author is among the last people on Earth who would go out of his way to promote an MLBAM business decision, but here you are, reading a post by me notifying you that MLB.tv is on sale today for a loosely speaking fair-ish price.
Of course, this occasion mostly serves as a reminder of MLB’s callous media-distribution practices. Six years ago, the league settled an antitrust lawsuit attacking things like its telecast blackout policy and centralized MLB.tv product by agreeing to make pricing and offering concessions to fans. Specifically, the seasonal price of the full MLB.tv package at that time would drop from $129.99 to $109.99, and the league would create a new, single-team package at a seasonal price of $84.99. These prices were to remain fixed for five years (i.e., through the 2020 season), subject to annual increases only up to the higher of three percent or the rate of inflation.
Now, that settlement agreement has expired, and MLB is seizing the opportunity to undo its effects. Most obviously, across-the-board pricing is up, doubly insulting as the league simultaneously excludes games from the full MLB.tv package for the benefit of its new partnerships with NBC and Apple.
Perhaps even more underhanded, however, is the soft killing of the single-team MLB.tv package. When first offered, the single-team option was priced at seventy-seven-percent of the full package price, then a twenty-five-dollar difference. MLB now has aggressively closed that gap. At today’s sale pricing, for example, the cost of the single-team option has jumped to eighty-six-percent of the full package price, just a ten-dollar difference. Stated otherwise, someone considering a single-team package can receive a thirty-fold increase in programming for just ten additional dollars. “Even you dummies know that’s a good deal,” fans hear Rob Manfred saying in their heads, even as they wonder why it doesn’t quite feel like a deal. The move to neutralize the single-team package feels like a purely spiteful move designed to achieve the functional undoing of one of the settlement agreement’s most visible achievements without any meaningful cost savings to MLB.
As I have been writing here for years, the message should be a simple one: “Rather than changing the game he wants people to watch . . . Manfred ought to change the way people can watch the game, obviously by making it easier for them to do so.” For how much longer can Manfred continue to squeeze baseball’s fans– including, as a recent example, Padres fans required to purchase yet another streaming service to watch this morning’s Peacock-exclusive game against the Atlanta Braves beginning at 8:35 am San Diego time– remains to be seen.
Thanks in significant part to the historic woes of the Arizona Diamondbacks, owners of an active road losing streak twenty-three games in length, the Colorado Rockies have risen out of last place in the National League West, though their 30-43 record wouldn’t place them in any better position in any other MLB division. Star outfielder Charlie Blackmon has significantly improved his personal situation, however. What in early May looked like the worst season of his career (e.g., 58 OPS+/56 wRC+) now shapes up as merely league average. Maybe DRC+ (then the outlier at 108, now roughly steady at 112) knows something after all, and the fact that Blackmon maintained an on-base streak almost as long as Arizona’s losing streak certainly helped.
Judge [David] Cannon certainly has plenty of latitude to grant a default judgment in Blackmon’s favor here. The easiest part to resolve should be a ruling on the question of a default judgment against Ramsey’s company, which, in Georgia, must be represented by a lawyer. Apparently open questions about the precise nature of the remedy or remedies Blackmon seeks (e.g., Does he just want his car back? Does he want money from Ramsey, and, if so, exactly how much?) may complicate the situation for Blackmon, however, and complications and uncertainties usually are not helpful to a party seeking entry of a default judgment.
Now, in his first edict in this case on the subject of the defendants’ default, Judge Cannon indeed seized upon that easiest portion of the issue before him, but not quite in the manner Blackmon probably wished. Acknowledging that Georgia law requires Ramsey Performance to be represented by an attorney in litigation in that state, the court’s notice nevertheless states that, in consideration of general guidance from the Supreme Court of Georgia favoring generosity in granting extensions of time during pandemic conditions, it will permit Ramsey Performance nearly another month to find a lawyer.
While this is a significant reprieve for Ramsey Performance, the relief may be short-lived. The mere participation of an attorney on the company’s behalf alone will not cure the company’s problems in this case, and that attorney still will be in the difficult position of having to convince Judge Cannon that he should excuse Ramsey Performance’s failures to respond to Blackmon’s complaint and motion for default judgment. To the extent settlement remains on the table, this may push Ramsey, who has repeatedly expressed his displeasure with the notion of having to pay for a lawyer, closer to a deal.
So pump the brakes for now, attentive public, and navigate your browser back here in a few weeks for our continuing exclusive coverage of arguably the summer’s biggest sports law story.
Earlier today, the State of Georgia enacted HB 617, which affirmatively permits college athletes attending schools in that state to receive financial compensation for use of their name, image, or likeness (“NIL”). The new law takes effect on July 1, 2021.
In a nationwide environment in which the NCAA broadly prohibits almost every form of direct financial compensation to so-called “student athletes,” emerging state laws like Georgia’s HB 617– other states joining in this initial wave include Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, and New Mexico– offer a commonsense middle ground on compensation that’s short of revenue sharing with school athletic departments and would seem to place schools in those states at a competitive recruiting advantage, at least in the short term.
The NCAA’s initial response to what appears to be a broadside attack on one of the governing body’s longstanding, core tenets was surprising. Jere Morehead, a member of the NCAA Board of Governors “said he would expect the NCAA would allow ‘accommodations,’ to be made for athletes in states with NIL rules.” Morehead also is the president of the University of Georgia, so this may not be the NCAA’s official position on state NIL laws. If the “accommodations” comment reflects in any way the thinking within NCAA leadership, though, it is extremely illuminating.
It’s easy to forget that athletics organizing entities, and especially in light of their popularity and rhetoric the NCAA, NFL, and MLB, do not act and regulate their respective sports with the force of actual law. (In fact, they in some sense operate outside the law thanks to formal and informal antitrust exemptions.) During baseball’s meltdown over Barry Bonds’ superhuman ascension in the early aughts, you could be forgiven if you weren’t sure whether steroids were illegal illegal or merely MLB “illegal.” The NFL also has done an effective job of coopting this officious language into its in-sport vernacular as well (e.g., “illegal touching” having quite different meanings on and off the field). All of these groups have “committees” that issue “rules” and “regulations” just like real government agencies!
For the degree to which these private sports administrative entities control the behavior of their subject players as well as the general public’s perception of the goings-ons in and around their games, it’s sort of amazing that states could just opt out of a major NCAA prohibition and the NCAA’s response is to roll over and take it. Not that passing legislation is easy, but is this all that was needed all along?
If the NCAA’s “accommodations” response proves real, it could carry widespread consequences for the enforceability of other NCAA rules. Suddenly, the implication is that the NCAA will yield wherever its policies conflict with state law. Does this mean an end to the NCAA’s punishment of athletes who use marijuana in states that have authorized its use? What about sports wagering? There of course are other actual legal factors at work with those two examples (the persistent federal marijuana prohibition and common legal provisions restricting wagering by contest participants), and it’s unclear whether an affirmative legalization is a prerequisite (e.g., was Todd Gurley prohibited from being paid for autographed helmets as a matter of Georgia law?) . Still, Morehead’s suggestion that the NCAA will quietly accede in this area implies that there actually may not be much brute behind the bluster out of Indianapolis. If that’s the case, it’s a welcome– if still annoyingly executed– development that should further hasten the loosening of the NCAA’s iron fist over those whose efforts generate millions of dollars in administrative salaries.
The end of the first month of the 2021 MLB season finds the Colorado Rockies stuck in last place in the National League’s Western Division. By OPS+, they’re the worst hitting team in the NL and the second-worst overall, their 85 OPS+ just edging the Detroit Tigers at 81 OPS+. Even though the Rockies were in the playoffs as recently as 2018, their slow start this year already has cost Jeff Bridich his general manager post. Perhaps unsurprisingly in light of the foregoing, Charlie Blackmon, the team’s ostensible star, so far is having the worst season of his career. His .169/.299/.292 line shakes out to 58 OPS+/56 wRC+/108 DRC+.*
That’s exactly what happened. Referring to Ramsey’s unusual filing as “a something,” Blackmon’s motion asked the Superior Court of Cherokee County, Georgia to take a shortcut to the end of the lawsuit. Ramsey’s response either was so deficient that it didn’t amount to an answer at all, the essence of the argument goes, or it was an answer that didn’t deny any of the material allegations in the complaint. Either way, Blackmon contended that the court can rule for him on the question of the defendants’ liability right now. The question of damages– basically, the amount of money the court would order paid to Blackmon– could throw a wrench into Blackmon’s gears, however. Because he hasn’t been able to inspect the vehicle, the motion proposes the appointment of a special master– an investigator who works at the judge’s direction– to provide an assessment of the Pontiac’s condition for the purpose of determining a precise monetary award.
If Ramsey’s response to this motion is better than his response to the complaint, it is so only because he typed it as a partially separate document rather than handwriting his comments on Blackmon’s filing. This response otherwise is worse than the last one. Continuing to represent himself, Ramsey complains that Blackmon refused an out-of-court resolution of the dispute on terms Ramsey dictated. Ramsey also provided in-line responses to some of the arguments in Blackmon’s default motion, though these generally do not help his position, being either admissions of matters pertinent to the question of default (e.g., acknowledgement that he was served with the complaint) or immaterial. He also attached correspondence that again reveals Blackmon’s personal email address (although Blackmon’s own lawyer already let that cat out of the bag) and is neither relevant nor, to the extent it constitutes settlement communications, admissible as evidence.
Next up will be the trial judge’s ruling on the default motion. Judge Cannon certainly has plenty of latitude to grant a default judgment in Blackmon’s favor here. The easiest part to resolve should be a ruling on the question of a default judgment against Ramsey’s company, which, in Georgia, must be represented by a lawyer. Apparently open questions about the precise nature of the remedy or remedies Blackmon seeks (e.g., Does he just want his car back? Does he want money from Ramsey, and, if so, exactly how much?) may complicate the situation for Blackmon, however, and complications and uncertainties usually are not helpful to a party seeking entry of a default judgment.
Those, of course, are matters for Blackmon’s legal team to sweat. Their client likely is more concerned about his sub-.200 batting average and his team’s NL-worst record.
As always, keep your browser dialed to ALDLAND.com, where we remain your (actually; I somehow am not kidding) exclusive source for hot rod baseball litigation.
* All statistics current as of the time I typed them.
MLB spring training kicked off this week, and the schedule included a couple of games for the Colorado Rockies, who make their spring camp in Arizona. While outfielder Charlie Blackmon has yet to make his 2021 spring debut for the Rockies, that didn’t stop his legal adversaries from making theirs on the other side of the country.
Yesterday, the Superior Court of Cherokee County, Georgia finally heard from Ramsey and his company– sort of. Ramsey, purporting to represent himself and possibly his company, filed a response to Blackmon’s complaint that does not so much answer the allegations, in a conventional sense, as it does continue the long-winded, argumentative emails Ramsey had been sending to Blackmon’s agent before he filed the lawsuit. To the extent they can be distilled, the main points of Ramsey’s countering contentions are that he, personally, is not at fault because all the work was done by his company; there was no fixed schedule for this “spare time” project; the scope of and financial responsibility for work done by third parties remains Blackmon’s obligation; “the vehicle is not a hostage . . . but it will not leave without payment resolution”; a sheriff’s deputy sent to inspect the vehicle at Ramsey’s garage accidentally defrosted Ramsey’s freezer; and Blackmon’s complaint should have included more of Ramsey’s emails.
The unsolicited suggestion that Ramsey and his company should hire a lawyer isn’t merely a strategic one borne out of the thought that judges are unlikely to be swayed upon encountering filings that include both segments typed entirely in capital letters and handwritten annotations on the opposing party’s exhibits. Indeed, while Ramsey has the right to make the choice to represent himself in court, his company, Ramsey Performance, does not.
Indeed, it isn’t clear that Ramsey Performance, as the distinct legal entity that Blackmon named as a separate defendant and to which Ramsey himself pointed for potential liability, filed an answer at all. If it did not, Blackmon’s attorney likely will wait a couple weeks and then move for a default judgment against Ramsey Performance. As for Ramsey’s responsive filing, assuming it qualifies as an answer, it may be ripe for a quick motion for judgment on the pleadings or summary judgment to the extent the judge determines that it does not sufficiently deny key allegations in Blackmon’s complaint. Setting aside for a moment the possibly critical technical failings of Ramsey’s answer, it also is possible that the judge orders the parties to mediate a dispute that seemingly could be resolved for less than $20,000.
The only way to find out what will happen next? Keeping it tuned right here to ALDLAND.com, your exclusive source (seriously) for hot rod baseball litigation.
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