I’m only here for the laughs. Don’t care about the merits of SMU as a conference member
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SMU sucks and they deserve to get Big Easted.
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I know bud, I like to crap on them too! I was more talking about the BCs, NC State’s and WFs of the world who believe they are football powerhouses. They aren’t and if this thing shakes out as we expect it to, it is far more likely they will be left out than let in.
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Question for @EastCoastCoog and @Chiklets .
Did the ACC, by preemptively filing, win the “race to the courthouse?”
FSU’s buyout to get out of the ACC today is $572 million.
Not even Saudi Arabia is going to float them that much
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If only FSU leaves, it will still be a P4 as long as Clemson, Notre Dame, UNC and Miami stay committed to the ACC.
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I agree with you that much of the ACC are lucky to be getting the check. Regarding SMU, there is fans hating on you and then there are the statements after they were added and the comments in the lawsuit. Wow! That has to hurt bad
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Let me say that I have not read the case yet, so I am relying on the few items I have seen on the Web, including this site.
I would say yes, FSU won the first “leg” of the race, but it may be irrelevant. ESPN could easily walk up to the court with the current media contract and say, “Here is the contract and its terms that were signed 11 years ago. They have operated under it the whole time and never complained. Now, they are for no reason except that they believe they got a bad deal now. The case has no merit and should be dismissed.” A judge could easily say, yep, agreed.
I should note that this case was filed in a state court in Tallahassee, which based on the parties involved, seems unlikely to stand. I expect the first thing the ACC attorney’s will do is argue venue. That may take a few months. Then the fun starts.
If this goes to trial, it maybe one of those cases that law students will be reading for decades.
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If it gets removed to Federal Court under diversity jurisdiction from Florida, then Florida law would still apply.
But if NC has venue, NC law would apply in any diversity federal lawsuit under removal jurisdiction.
That’s why I asked.
Did the ACC win the “race to the courthouse?
Oh okay, misunderstood. Yeah, I did not see that the ACC filed for declaratory judgement preemptively. In that case, it depends. The scenario I cited above, where the ACC attorneys go to court with the existing K in hand, still stands. However, I think it depends on what is really at issue here.
The ACC will argue that it is about contract law, plain and simple. Thus, the ACC may have won the first leg, if they can get a judge to agree that the issue is contractual and not a restraint of trade. In addition, as you indicated, they will also argue that because it is merely contract law, then the law of NC apply should apply.
However, one thing to consider is, what does the contract say? What is the governing jurisdiction under the terms of the contract? What remedies are available? In my experience, when you have contracts of this size, most parties agree to set remedies, including in many cases, arbitration. Additionally, these contracts often have governing law articles that will apply the Law of Delaware or NY, rather than the jurisdiction of either party to the agreement. I have not read the K in question, so unsure what it says on this, but I assume the ACC’s lawyer know these backwards and forwards.
FSU will argue that it is not about contract law (likely they would cede this point), but restraint of trade under FL law, and that FL state law should apply.
My $0.03 (inflation)
Pissing on donk - good idea
Pissing on or with ESPN - bad idea
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Watching the ACC network right now.
One thing I didn’t know is that the ACC apparently keeps its GOR document under lock and key, doesn’t allow anyone to view it unsupervised, and won’t allow anyone to copy it.
Why the secret squirrel crap?
The discovery process in this case will be very interesting.
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That’s not how conflict of laws principles work.
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It’s not exactly a conflict of laws issue.
These are parties from different states.
Which means that either case could be removed from the state court in which it was filed the to federal courts under the federal courts’ “diversity” jurisdiction.
In such cases, according to the USSC case of Erie Railroad v Tompkins, in such cases, the federal court will apply the “common law” (for things like Contracts), of the state in which it sits.
If the N.C. case gets removed to federal court, that means that North Carolina Contract law would apply.
If the Florida case is removed to federal court under diversity jurisdiction, then Florida Contract law would apply.
Which venue is correct?
What about the Florida anti-trust law?
Did the ACC win the “race to the courthouse” by filing first, making it the controlling venue?
This isn’t strictly speaking a conflict of laws issue.
It’s potentially a federal diversity jurisdiction civil procedure issue.
Wouldn’t a party who signed an agreement get a copy? Or are you referring to the media or other third parties not having access?
Based on what ESPN and the ACC network are reporting, the ACC maintains the only copy, which they don’t allow to be viewed without supervision, or copied.
Strange
I’m sure it’ll all be revealed during the discovery process.
That’s wrong. The court sitting in diversity will apply its own state’s conflict of laws principles, but that doesn’t mean that its state law applies. Also, there is probably a choice of law provision in the contract at issue.
In a contract law case, which this arguably is, it’s the common contract law of the state in which the federal court sits that would apply.
For the N.C. case, it would be N.C. contact law that would apply.
In the Fla case, it would be Fla contract law.
Would it not?
I’ll stop arguing with you, but that’s not right. The contract could easily elect NY law or NC law to govern, and the Florida court would apply that law. It’s not simply where the case is filed.
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IF that’s what the contract says.
I won’t assume that the contract says any such thing.
And if it doesn’t, then the very principles I mentioned would indeed apply.
There’s no federal common law of contracts.
And then there’s the issue of whether Florida anti-trust law applies, because violations of that are alleged in the Florida lawsuit.