By Jim Saunders ©2024 The News Service of Florida
TALLAHASSEE — Florida State University late Wednesday urged an appeals court to reject an attempt by the Atlantic Coast Conference to put on hold a lawsuit filed by FSU as a two-state legal battle continues over issues such as sports media rights.
Attorneys for FSU filed a 21-page document at the 1st District Court of Appeal disputing the conference’s arguments that a lawsuit filed in North Carolina should take priority over the case that the university filed in Leon County circuit court. The ACC filed the North Carolina case one day before Florida State filed its lawsuit in December.
The ACC last month filed what is known as a “petition for writ of certiorari” at the Tallahassee-based appeals court as it seeks a stay of the Florida case. The petition came after Leon County Circuit Judge John Cooper refused to halt the case.
In the document filed Wednesday evening, FSU’s attorneys said state law gives judges discretion in deciding whether to stay cases in such situations. The document also said the ACC rushed to file its lawsuit in North Carolina without getting approval from members because it was anticipating the competing lawsuit filed by the Florida State Board of Trustees.
“The FSU board action, in vivid contrast, was filed only after a required public meeting had been properly noticed, held, and the required vote being taken, all of which resulted in approval and the authorization to initiate this litigation,” FSU’s attorneys wrote. “The ACC exploited this legally required delay to race to the North Carolina courts with its declaratory judgment action without any notice, any meeting, or taking the required vote (of members).”
But in the petition, the ACC cited a legal “principle of priority” and said the North Carolina and Florida cases both involve similar questions about sports media contracts and rights. The ACC is based in North Carolina.
“In this high-profile lawsuit over the interpretation of college sports contracts, the trial court (Cooper) committed a judicial foul,” the petition said. “It ignored this (appeals) court’s binding precedent on the principle of priority that requires staying this case pending the disposition of a priority North Carolina lawsuit between the same parties over the same contracts.”
The legal battle is being closely watched in the world of college sports and comes amid a major restructuring of conferences. FSU, which is widely believed to be seeking to leave the ACC to move to a more lucrative conference, essentially contends the ACC has shortchanged its members through television contracts and that the school would face exorbitant financial penalties if it leaves..
FSU filed its lawsuit Dec. 22 in Leon County, a day after the conference filed its case in Mecklenburg County, N.C.
The ACC filed a motion for a stay of the Florida lawsuit, but Cooper rejected the idea during an April hearing and followed up with a May 6 written order. He said he disagreed with the ACC’s arguments about priority,
“I find based on the record and within the court’s jurisdiction that there are additional (and in fact extraordinary) circumstances warranting denial of the requested stay,” Cooper wrote. “Specifically, I find the North Carolina action to be an ‘anticipatory filing’ done in express anticipation of the FSU board’s lawsuit in Florida, and that the anticipatory filing is in the nature of forum shopping that cannot be supported with a stay of these proceedings.”
FSU sought dismissal of the North Carolina lawsuit, but Louis Bledsoe, chief business court judge in Mecklenburg County, rejected the request in April.
In the ACC petition filed June 5 at the 1st District Court of Appeal, the conference’s attorneys wrote that “the North Carolina court found that there was nothing improper with a North Carolina organization filing a suit over a North Carolina contract when it was virtually certain that its counter-party (FSU) intended to breach that contract.”
But in the response filed Wednesday evening, FSU’s attorneys wrote that it is the “FSU board that will incur injury if a stay is granted.”
