City Sues Sonics

The City of Seattle has filed suit against the Seattle Supersonics' and Storm's owners to try to keep the teams in Seattle through the end of their lease of the KeyArena. Blame flies as city sues Sonics, Seattle Times, Sept. 25, 2007.

The Seattle Times has posted a pdf of the complaint (11 pages, with 75 pages of exhibits).

In addition to City Attorney Tom Carr, the city is represented by a team from K&L Gates.

I'm reminded of the first-year Contracts case where a concert hall owner tried to force an opera singer to sing. It doesn't always work so well.

(That nineteenth-century case was Lumley v. Wagner, and it still gets attention. See Geoffrey Christopher Rapp, Affirmative Injunctions in Athletic Employment Contracts: Rethinking the Place of the Lumley Rule in American Sports Law, 16 Marquette Sports L. Rev. 261 (2006); S.M. Waddams, Johanna Wagner and the Rival Opera Houses, 117 Law Q. Rev. 117 431 (2001); Lea S. VanderVelde, The Gendered Origins of the Lumley Doctrine: Binding Men's Consciences and Women's Fidelity, 101 Yale L.J. 775 (1992). )

To those who enjoy good, hard-fought athletic contests, I recommend finding youth leagues and school teams and following them. They're likely to stay in town, the athletes try their best and truly care about the outcomes of their games, and the seats are a lot more affordable than anything in the NBA.


Photo: Coach Bill Resler with his Roosevelt High School team, from "The Heart of the Game" (Miramax Pictures) via University Week.