Batter Up: Lawyers Come Out Swinging Against Major League Baseball
The cases so far, which have been trickling in since late January and may not be the last, include plaintiffs who are online sports betters, a Houston Astros season-ticket holder and a former Major League Baseball pitcher.
February 18, 2020 at 03:39 PM
5 minute read
Attorneys from across the nation—from Connecticut to New Jersey, Texas and California—are stepping up to bat to oppose Major League Baseball's sign-stealing scandal by doing what lawyers do best: filing lawsuits.
The cases so far, which have been trickling in since late January and may not be the last, include plaintiffs who are online sports betters, a Houston Astros season-ticket holder and a former Major League Baseball pitcher.
Sign-stealing scandals have touched the Astros and the Boston Red Sox. Sign-stealing refers to a practice in which one team observes the opposing team's catcher as he uses hand signals to tell his pitcher which pitch to throw. The stealing team then tells its batter which pitch to expect.
An MLB investigation found that the Astros had improperly used an outfield camera system to steal signs from opposing teams' pitchers in the 2017 and 2018 seasons. The league fined the team $5 million, banned its manager and general manager for one year, and stripped the club of its first- and second-round draft picks for the next two seasons. A disciplinary decision with regard to the Boston Red Sox is still pending.
Here's a look at the plaintiffs lawyers who have sued over sign-stealing so far.
David S. Golub
David Golub of Stamford, Connecticut, is the lead attorney for the first and largest group of plaintiffs to sue over sign-stealing. He represents a group of DraftKings Inc. sports betters who alleged in a class action, Olson v. Major League Baseball, that the MLB promoted fantasy baseball wagering games through DraftKings that it knew were "corrupt and dishonest." A similar lawsuit, Clifford v. Major League Baseball, was recently consolidated with Olson, which is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Click here to read the full Olson complaint.
Golub, a partner in Silver Golub & Teitell, was lead counsel for Connecticut in the Big Tobacco settlements of the 1990s, helping secure more than $3.6 billion for the state, according to his law firm profile. Last year, Golub had one of the top-10 settlements in Connecticut, where he secured $5 million for the estate of a 16-year-old girl who was stabbed to death at her high school by a boy whom she had previously reported to school counselors as a danger to himself and others.
Other attorneys involved in the DraftKings litigation include: Golub's colleagues, Steven Bloch and Ian Sloss; New Jersey-based Radice Law Firm founder John D. Radice and attorneys Kenneth Pickle, Natasha Fernandez-Silber and April Lambert; Pennsylvania-based attorneys Eric Cramer and Patrick Madden of Berger Montague.
Attorneys for the defendants have not yet made appearances in the case, but Golub wrote in an email that Vinson & Elkins litigators Clifford Thau, Hilary Preston and Michael Holmes are representing the Houston Astros. Sullivan & Cromwell attorney John Hardiman is representing Major League Baseball, according to Golub. The New York Law Journal reported that former Manhattan federal judge Katherine B. Forrest will represent the Boston Red Sox.
Ben Meiselas
Los Angeles attorney Ben Meiselas represents Mike Bolsinger, who claims in a Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit that Astros' sign-stealing scandal derailed his career as an MLB pitcher because he was demoted after performing poorly in a game against the Astros. He claims their sign-stealing was the reason.
Meiselas heads the transactional and civil practice at Geragos & Geragos in Los Angeles, according to his law firm profile. He has represented plaintiffs in a class action over the 2018 Mariott data breach in which hackers in 2018 breached the reservation program of the company's hotel chains.
Mitch Toups
Texas attorney Mitch Toups represents an Astros season ticket holder, Adam Wallach, who filed a class action in Harris County District Court, alleging that the Astros violated MLB rules and "secretly put a deficient product on the field."
Toups, who didn't return a call seeking comment, is a personal injury litigator and works at Weller Green Toups & Terrell in Beaumont, according to his State Bar of Texas profile. He earned his law degree from Texas Tech University School of Law in 1982, and was licensed in Texas in 1983. He is board certified in civil trial law and personal injury trial law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization.
Another attorney for the proposed class is Richard Coffman of The Coffman Law Firm in Beaumont.
Read the full Wallach complaint.
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