TALLAHASSEE, Fla. —
An appellate court panel on Monday unanimously allowed Florida State University to proceed with a lawsuit against the Atlantic Coast Conference in the latest twist in a two-state legal battle over issues such as sports media rights.
Monday’s ruling was rooted in dueling lawsuits filed in December over what is widely believed to be Florida State’s desire to leave the ACC to join a more lucrative sports conference — and the possibility that the university would face hefty financial penalties if it makes such a move.
Attorneys for FSU contend that the conference, which filed a lawsuit in North Carolina one day before Florida State filed its lawsuit in December in Leon County, rushed to court without getting approval from member schools. FSU said the conference made the move because it was anticipating the lawsuit filed by Florida State’s Board of Trustees.
The conference maintains that because its lawsuit was filed first, the Florida challenge should be put on hold until the North Carolina case is resolved.
After Leon County Circuit Judge John Cooper in June rejected the ACC’s request for a stay, the conference filed a petition for what is known as a writ of certiorari at the 1st District Court of Appeal. Monday’s ruling, written by Judge Joseph Lewis, upheld Cooper’s decision “because the trial court did not depart from the essential requirements of the law” in denying the ACC’s request for a stay.
A writ of certiorari “is an extraordinary remedy that gives a higher court the prerogative to reach down and halt a miscarriage of justice,” the 13-page ruling, joined by Judges Ross Bilbrey and M. Kemmerly Thomas, said.
Such a review “is not a substitute for an appeal and is intended to be used only in very limited circumstances,” Lewis wrote, adding that the scope of certiorari “is more constrained” than a direct appeal.
The ACC did not show that “there was a departure from the essential requirements of the law” in Cooper’s ruling that “resulted in material injury for the remainder of the case” and that “cannot be corrected on post-judgment appeal,” the panel found.
“In conclusion, because the ACC has failed to establish an entitlement to certiorari relief, we deny its petition on the merits,” the ruling said.
The panel also rejected the ACC’s argument that a legal “principle of priority” gave precedence to the North Carolina lawsuit. The conference filed its lawsuit on Dec. 21 — the same day the FSU Board of Trustees published a notice of a Dec. 22 meeting to discuss “legal matters related” to “intercollegiate athletics.”
The three-judge panel held arguments in the appeal in September. A key issue in the case is a 2013 “grant of rights” agreement. The deal transferred the conference schools’ media rights to home games to the ACC in exchange for a collective media-rights contract with ESPN. The grant-of-rights agreement was modified in 2016 and lasts until 2036.
Alan Lawson, a former Florida Supreme Court justice who represents the North Carolina-based ACC, pointed to “well-established” case law as he argued that Cooper erred in rejecting the conference’s request to put FSU’s case on hold while the North Carolina case plays out.
“FSU and each member promised that they would not take any action that would affect the validity and enforcement of the rights granted to the conference under this agreement,” Lawson said on Sept. 11.
Lawson acknowledged that the timing of the ACC lawsuit was linked to Florida State trustees’ decision to challenge the agreement.
“FSU has breached its contract with the ACC and all member institutions when it challenged the grant-of-rights agreement. That agreement, by its express terms, is irrevocable, and they promised that they would not challenge it during the term of the contract,” he said in September.
FSU sought dismissal of the lawsuit that the conference filed in North Carolina, but Louis Bledsoe, chief business court judge in Mecklenburg County, N.C., rejected the request in April. Florida State appealed Bledsoe’s decision, and the case is pending at the North Carolina Supreme Court.
The fierce legal fighting continues at the 1st District Court of Appeal in a separate appeal by the ACC, which is challenging an Aug. 13 order by Cooper denying the conference’s motion to dismiss the case.
In seeking dismissal, the ACC contended, in part, that Cooper didn’t have “jurisdiction” over the university’s claims against the conference.
The conference’s appeal argued in part that the ACC filed its North Carolina lawsuit “to protect itself and its other members” against potential actions by Florida State.
“Despite its cloak-and-dagger plot to ambush the ACC, FSU had the chutzpah to argue that it was the conference — not FSU — that engaged in improper forum shopping by filing suit as the party damaged by FSU’s breach,” said a footnote in a brief filed by the ACC on Oct. 2.
Cooper has scheduled a hearing on Friday in the underlying case.
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