Madison Square Garden, ex-Knicks star fight over lawyer fees
June 5 (Reuters) - (Billable Hours is Reuters' weekly report on lawyers and money. Please send tips or suggestions to D.Thomas@thomsonreuters.com, opens new tab)
Lawyers for one-time New York Knicks All-Star Charles Oakley and Madison Square Garden are squaring off over attorney fees, as the stadium fights to finally escape an eight-year-old lawsuit over the former NBA player's televised removal from a February 2017 Knicks game.
Oakley's case against the Manhattan stadium and its chief executive James Dolan, who also owns the Knicks, has twice been dismissed by a federal judge, only to be revived each time by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
MSG on Friday asked U.S. Circuit Judge Richard Sullivan, who is overseeing the case in the lower court, to reject Oakley's lawsuit, opens new tab for good, arguing that the evidence shows that he refused to leave the stadium when asked and assaulted security guards.
They separately asked the judge to sanction Oakley, opens new tab and his lawyers at Wigdor LLP and Petrillo, Klein & Boxer for pushing what they called a "false narrative" about Oakley's ejection.
Wigdor partner Valdi Licul, in a letter to Sullivan, opens new tab filed Wednesday, said Oakley would be filing his own sanctions motion against MSG, arguing that the stadium's sanctions bid is unreasonable and was improperly filed.
MSG is represented by New York first deputy mayor Randy Mastro and lawyers at Mastro's former law firm King & Spalding. They did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for Mayor Eric Adams, who appointed Mastro in March, said the city had determined there was no conflict of interest for Mastro to continue his "limited representation" of MSG.
Mastro is working on the case "in his personal capacity, on his own time, without compensation, and without city resources," the spokesperson said.
The amount of sanctions the arena's lawyers are seeking could be significant — MSG wants Wigdor to reimburse it for the money it paid Mastro and its high-powered lawyers going as far back as the beginning of the case.
If Sullivan won't go that far, MSG has asked him to at least award fees since July 2021, when Douglas Wigdor, one of Oakley's lawyers, personally oversaw revisions to the former NBA player's autobiography that MSG alleges were intended to bolster his lawsuit.
MSG claimed that Oakley's initial drafts undermined his claims that he was not given a reasonable opportunity to leave the stadium before he was ejected, and that he admitted to slipping and falling on his own and not being pushed by MSG security guards.
Licul pushed back in Wednesday's court filing, arguing that MSG was engaged in "self-serving editorialization." He also said MSG and its lawyers should be sanctioned for making allegedly false assertions that Dolan was not involved in Oakley's removal from the stadium that night.
Oakley is a 19-year NBA veteran and fan favorite who was a Knicks power forward from 1988 to 1998.
He initially brought a bevy of claims against MSG and Dolan. He sued for defamation over several statements, including when the Knicks tweeted that his behavior was "highly inappropriate and completely abusive" and expressed hope he "gets some help soon," which Oakley said insinuated substance abuse.
In his latest amended complaint, opens new tab from April 2024, the former NBA player is alleging claims of assault and battery against MSG and its related entities.
--Alphabet's (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Google has hired U.S. Supreme Court veteran Donald Verrilli Jr of Munger Tolles to lead the company's high-stakes appeal in the D.C. Circuit challenging a ruling that said the company was illegally monopolizing the web search market.
Verrilli separately is battling the Trump administration in a spate of cases. He is lead counsel for law firm Susman Godfrey in its lawsuit against a Trump executive order targeting the firm.
A court filing in March in a U.S. bankruptcy case involving a Munger client showed Verrilli has billed at $2,270 an hour. Verrilli did not immediately respond to a request for comment about his new work for Google, which has denied any wrongdoing.
--Google has agreed to pay $80 million in legal fees, opens new tab to plaintiffs' lawyers at Scott+Scott for their work on a shareholder lawsuit and settlement with the tech giant.
In the accord, Google will dedicate $500 million over ten years to make a series of corporate reforms, resolving a lawsuit that accused the company's board of allowing anticompetitive conduct in search, advertising and apps. The settlement requires court approval. Google and its board denied any wrongdoing.
--Some health insurer class members in a multibillion-dollar federal healthcare judgment will get a little more money in the coming weeks, thanks to a federal judge's ruling on an interest payment.
Judge Kathryn Davis of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims on Tuesday directed law firm Quinn Emanuel, opens new tab to send a roughly $10 million check to the claims administrator in the case.
Davis' ruling was tied to her decision in October to slash Quinn's legal fee in the case from $185 million to $92 million. Class members who questioned the original fee and Quinn then fought over which interest rate should apply to extra money that the lower fee award yielded to the judgment fund.
The challengers had asked for a higher interest rate than what Davis applied in her ruling this week. Quinn Emanuel and a lawyer for the objectors did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
--A U.S. judge in Maryland on Thursday awarded, opens new tab law firms Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll and Handley Farah & Anderson more than $132 million in fees for their work on settlements totaling nearly $400 million with major poultry producers. The defendants were accused of conspiring to suppress their workers' wages, in violation of antitrust law. The settling companies have denied any wrongdoing.
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Wegovy maker Novo faces fee demand after losing copycat drug lawsuit
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Settlements mount against law firm caught up in bankruptcy judge's secret romance
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