On the Record

I would consider myself a casual hockey fan; I especially enjoy the playoffs and the power of the playoff beards.  My one personal fan rule is that, whenever possible, I root for Canadian teams. It’s their sport, and I think it’s silly the National Hockey League expanded into cities that only see snow when “It’s A Wonderful Life” is on television.

Cities like Phoenix, where the NHL finds itself today in U.S. Bankruptcy Court trying to seize ownership of the bankrupt Phoenix Coyotes. The league’s opponent is Jim Balsillie, a Canadian billionaire who founded Research in Motion, maker of the BlackBerry.

Balsillie is the only prospective buyer of the club, offering more than $240 million, and he wants to move the team to Hamilton, Ontario. But this is his third attempt at buying a franchise — the two previous attempts failed — and earlier this summer NHL owners voted 26-0 against Balsillie owning a franchise because he lacked the “good character and integrity required of a new owner,” as one owner put it.

The NHL has countered with a $140 million offer, essentially becoming the team’s caretaker until another owner can be found.

Not surprisingly, today’s hearing is front-page news in Canada, with at least four major newspapers blogging live from Phoenix. The hearing is expected to continue through Friday, and Judge Redfield T. Baum has said he will rule in the case no later than Oct. 1, when the NHL’s 2009-2010 season beings.

The Coyotes franchise, incidentally, moved to Phoenix from their original home in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1996 because of financial problems.

They didn’t set out to hang out their shingles — at least, not yet — but the economy made it the most attractive option for these new solo practitioners. Read The Accidental Solo, this related story on setting up shop, and these tips on running your own practice.

The University of Maryland law school’s Appellate and Post-Conviction Advocacy Clinic highlights its summer wins and is taking a setback in stride, as one of its recent clients got arrested on a charge similar to the one the clinic helped get expunged.

Topping the news are stories about the firing of Public Defender Nancy Forster and a citation against a Charles County judge for letting the air out of a court worker’s tire. In Legal Briefs, Chief Judge Bell sends another letter – this time, seeking Social Security numbers for the Client Protection Fund.

In Verdicts & Settlements, a Baltimore jury awards more than $1 million to the children of a young woman who died after surgery to resolve her blood clots. And, in Unbillable Hours, meet a Montgomery County lawyer who coaches high school football players in more ways than one.

PLUS: On the Move; columns by Legal Aid’s Joe Surkiewicz and Dolan Media’s Justin Rebello; and our weekly Law Digest, featuring eight opinions by the 4th Circuit.

With the Court of Appeals on its summer break, I will have no more chances for a while to keep tabs on the annotations in Judge Glenn T. Harrell’s opinions.

Fortunately, I was alerted by Assistant Legal Editor Christina Doran of a U.S. District Court judge in Philadelphia who picked up the slack. Judge Michael M. Baylson wrote an opinion last month in a lawsuit involving the Arena Football League’s Philadelphia Soul and a former employee.

The Soul are partially owned by Jon Bongiovi - better known as Jon Bon Jovi, better known as the lead singer of Bon Jovi. That led Baylson to reference five Bon Jovi songs and multiple football terms in his first two and last paragraphs of the opinion. Sample sentence: “[T]he Philadelphia Soul… rose in a ‘Blaze of Glory’ to win the 2008… Arena Bowl and then was ‘Shot Through The Heart’ when its 2009 season was canceled by the League due to financial problems.”

Baylson thanked his law clerk in a footnote for helping with the Bon Jovi song titles. It should be noted, however, that “Shot Through the Heart” is popularly misidentified as the title of a song actually called “You Give Love A Bad Name.”

“Have A Nice Day” (and holiday weekend!).

HT: QuizLaw (second post down from June 30).

Tuesday, I wrote about the WWE/NBA scheduling conflict at the Pepsi Center in Denver, which was resolved in the short-term when the arena owners (who also own the Denver Nuggets) said basketball would be played there Monday night.

Now comes word that WWE’s Monday Night Raw will be held Memorial Day at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, home of the L.A. Lakers — the Nuggets’ opponent in the Western Conference Finals. Wrestling will return to Denver in August.

Oh, but if only everyone could live happily ever after. The WWE has already begun referring to the incident as the “double-booking debacle,” and Chairman Vince McMahon has said he will make an apperance Monday in a match between the ”Nuggets” and “Lakers.” (I wonder who will win?)

The WWE and the Pepsi Center are also still bickering, though there is no word yet of a formal lawsuit. The arena claims the sides had a deal in place whereby the wrestling would go on as planned Sunday night in Denver, but then McMahon decided to go to Los Angeles without telling the arena owners, who called McMahon “a master of propaganda.” McMahon countered by saying the Pepsi Center tried to “strong-arm” his organization into an agreement and pointed out the show is called “Monday” Night Raw, not “Sunday” Night Raw.

The most delicious twist of all? The two events will air head-to-head Memorial Day evening. Should make for some enjoyable channel surfing.

From the Lawsuit Waiting to Happen Dept.:

Last August, World Wrestling Entertainment reserved the Pepsi Center in Denver on May 25 for its Monday Night Raw show and has already sold more than 10,000 tickets. It signed a contract confirming the date last month. But now, because of results in the ongoing NBA playoffs, the Denver Nuggets are scheduled to host the Los Angeles Lakers at the Pepsi Center on May 25 in Game 4 of the Western Conference finals.

The Pepsi Center’s Web site lists both events on May 25, with 7 p.m. listed for the Nuggets’ game and “TBD” listed for the WWE.  On Tuesday, the Pepsi Center’s ownership announced the basketball game will be held as scheduled, bumping the WWE to a future date. (Note: Some would argue that, with the NBA’s notorious playoff officiating, the Pepsi Center is merely substituting one scripted event for another.)

The best part of all this has been the response by Vince McMahon, chairman of the WWE. He spoke some legal-ese today, pointing out there was no pre-emption provision in the WWE’s contract. But in an interview yesterday, he brought the showmanship his wrestlers are famous for, declaring Nuggets and Pepsi Center owner Stan Kroenke should be “arrested for impersonating a good businessman” and challenged him to a steel-cage match.

He also got in this zinger in a company news release:

Even though the Denver Nuggets had a strong team this year and were projected to make the playoffs, obviously Nuggets and Pepsi Center owner Stan Kroenke did not have enough faith in his own team to hold the May 25 date for a potential playoff game.

No word yet on where the WWE will put on Monday’s show.

The NFL Draft is this weekend, when college players find out what team they will play for come fall. I never thought of the draft in legal terms. But, as Eriq Foster wrote in Slate, essentially “team owners are allowed to conspire to claim rights over the lives and labor of young men.”

This set-up was sanctioned by an agreement between the NFL Players’ Association and the league more than 30 years ago that recognized the draft as a ”non-statutory labor exemption” to the Sherman Antitrust Act, Foster wrote. Such a compromise was needed because of a lawsuit filed by former player James “Yazoo” Smith in 1970.

Smith was a first-round pick of the Washington Redskins in 1968 who signed with the team for $50,000. His career ended due to injury in his rookie season. He sued the league, arguing that without the draft, he could have negotiated a better contract with the team of his choice.

Smith won nearly $300,000 in U.S. District Court, a ruling upheld by an appellate court. “The draft inescapably forces each seller of football services to deal with one, and only one buyer, robbing the seller, as in any monopsonistic market, of any real bargaining power,” it said.

Foster noted other professional leagues soon followed the NFL’s lead when it came to the draft.

Just some food for thought when you’re not basking in the glow of Mel Kiper Jr.

The NFL released its entire 2009 schedule Tuesday, but it’s eight specific games on the calendar that are the focus of a courtroom hearing in Washington, D.C. this week.

The octet of games will air later this year on NFL Network, which is owned by the league. Comcast has put the network on its premium sports tier, which costs extra on top of the standard digital package, where the league wants its network to be.

Comcast, the nation’s largest cable provider, claims it put the network in the premium tier because of high costs associated with carrying the channel; the NFL says Comcast put the channel there so as not to compete with Comcast’s own sports channels. 

An administrative law judge with the Federal Communications Commission will make a ruling that could have implications beyond sports:

It is the first big test at the FCC of a 1992 federal law that prohibits cable companies, such as Comcast, from favoring their own entertainment content over that of independents, such as the NFL Network. …[A ruling in favor of the NFL] could make it easier for independent programmers to gain access to cable systems, experts say.

This case is one of three that will be heard in the next few months by Judge Richard L. Sippel; another one, interestingly enough, involves MASN, the Orioles’ and Nationals cable network. After settling a separate federal suit against Comcast (over “split feed” advertising in the Baltimore and D.C. region) a little more than a year ago, MASN now wants Comcast to carry the channel in several southern Virginia markets.

Talk of presidential pardons usually heats up as a commander-in-chief is leaving the White House. One recent exception to that rule has been Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight boxing champion.

Johnson won the title in 1908, spawning the search for the “Great White Hope” that could defeat the Texas native. Ultimately, he was stopped not by another pugilist but by Congress; Johnson was convicted in 1913 of violating the Mann Act, which prohibited commercial transportation of women for prostitution. Johnson had consensual relationships with white women, which his supporters believe unfairly made him a government target. (Johnson eventually served 10 months in jail after initially fleeing the country following his conviction.)

On Wednesday, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Rep. Peter T. King, R-N.Y. announced they would introduce another resolution recommending a posthumous presidential pardon for Johnson. They were joined by filmmaker Ken Burns, a Johnson advocate whose 2005 documentary on the boxer I highly recommend. Similar legislation has failed twice in the last five years. 

King, an amateur boxer, said he believes now is the time for a pardon, perhaps because Barack Obama is the first black president. Neither the White House nor the Justice Department had a comment on the pending resolution.

Here’s to hoping Johnson’s supporters can finally land a knock-out punch in the pardon fight.

I blogged Friday about D.C. lawyer DeMaurice F. Smith, one of four men vying to become the new executive director of the NFL Players Association. Smith is a business lawyer with no connections to the National Football League. At the end of my Friday post, I wrote:

[Former player Troy] Vincent is the front-runner, though I wouldn’t be surprised if the union decides to tap the outsider offering a fresh perspective.

My prediction came true yesterday. Now, if only I can be so accurate in my NCAA Tournament bracket…

Representatives from the NFL Players Association are in Maui this weekend to select a new executive director for what the AP calls “North America’s most powerful sports union.” Three candidates have football and football-related experience: Troy Vincent and Trace Armstrong are ex-players and former NFLPA presidents, and Georgia lawyer David Cornwell is a well-known sports agent and lawyer.

It’s the fourth candidate to replace the late Gene Upshaw, however, that I find most interesting. He’s DeMaurice F. Smith, a partner with D.C. law firm PattonBoggs. He is a business lawyer, not a labor lawyer. (He’s also a Redskins fan, but I don’t think voters can hold that against him.)

The union is looking at Smith because he is an outsider, and Smith told The Washington Post earlier this month he thinks his combination of fan and business expert makes the executive director position a perfect fit.

Smith should be careful what he wishes for, however. The new executive director inherits two big, lingering issues. The first and most important is re-negotiating a labor deal with the league after the current one expires following the 2010 season. Failure to reach an agreement could lead to owners locking out players in 2011. The second issue is the ongoing criticism from retired players who feel the union does not adequately address their medical and financial needs.

Vincent is the front-runner, though I wouldn’t be surprised if the union decides to tap the outsider offering a fresh perspective - shades of another candidate and election result from November.