The Little Sonics Lawsuit That Could

When former Seattle Sonics owner Clay Bennett first announced the he intended to move the team to his home state of Oklahoma, he and his co-owners were met with a slew of lawsuits.

The City of Seattle sued to enforce a lease that would have held the team here until 2010. Howard Schultz sued claiming that the new owners he'd sold to had lied about their intentions for the team.

From the outside, it looked like a sound strategy: hold the team here for two years and bleed the new owners hard enough to force a sale to local owners.

But the plan fell apart when Bennett’s skillful attorney Brad Keller dismantled the Mayor, the City’s experts and, seemingly, the entire case on the witness stand. The City settled with Bennett for a few breadcrumbs and Schultz dropped his suit.

Bennett was gone and so were the Sonics.

But under the radar, off the front pages, three Sonics season ticketholders launched a lawsuit against Bennett and the Professional Basketball Club (PBC) claiming that they had been lied to. And now, just over a year after the Sonics left town, that little lawsuit is working its way to trial and is the last, best hope to finally get some satisfaction and legal leverage against an arrogant ownership group that many feel lied, cheated, and stole from Seattle.

This week, all 2007-08 Sonic season ticketholders received notice about their participation in a class action lawsuit against the Professional Basketball Club LLC. The documents contained in the notice outlined the history of the case and asked ticketholders if they would like to be represented in the class or decline participation.

Behind the legal talk, the documents bear witness to a remarkable case. Robert Brotherson, Patrick Sheehy, and Carolyn Bechtel, the three ticketholders named in the suit, had a compelling complaint.

In early 2007, the Sonics sent out a renewal package to all season ticketholders. In the brochure, which featured a letter signed by Clay Bennett, the Sonics offered all ticketholders a commitment that if they bought tickets for the 2007-08 season, they could buy tickets for the 2008-09 and 2009-10 season at the same price. They called the program the Emerald Club.

It was clear that the club was hoping to salvage at least some business for the season. Some might say they were desperate.

The three plaintiffs took the offer at face value and bought the tickets. They might also have believed that the offer meant the team was staying for the final two years of the lease.

(Disclaimer: The author is a former Sonic season ticketholder and a member of the Emerald Club; as such, he is a member of the class in the lawsuit)

One year later, while the lease fight was heading for court, the Sonics emailed all Emerald Club members and said that, with the lease up in the air, they would not send out renewal packages, but would notify them when the case was settled. The Sonics never called back.

The plaintiffs believe that failure to offer them the right to buy season tickets at the 2007-08 price, even if the team was in Oklahoma, is a breach of contract.

Mark Griffin

“When we first started on the lawsuit, the Professional Basketball Club owners basically laughed at us,” said Mark Griffin, an attorney at Keller Rohrback who was appointed by the court as class council. “They said it was ludicrous to hold them to a contract promise to let the plaintiffs buy tickets at the 2007-08 prices. They asked the court for a summary judgment and probably thought the whole mess would be swept away.”

It didn’t work out that way. The case landed in the court of the Honorable Richard A. Jones in the United States District Court. Jones is a Seattle native, the brother of Quincy Jones and, no doubt, someone who attended Sonics games in the past. Probably a lot of games.

Jones is known as an excellent judge, a keen legal mind and an even keeled jurist who decides cases based on facts. He made a summary judgment in February 2009. The judgment, which can be read online at www.sonicsclassaction.com, dismissed most of the PBC’s claims and threw out the plaintiffs claim that the brochure and subsequent action constituted a violation of the state’s consumer protection act.

But Jones left intact the plaintiffs claim that the Sonics entered into a contract with ticketholders and then broke that contract. He ruled that all season ticketholders in the Emerald Club were a class for the purposes of the suit. He further ruled that the plaintiffs had suffered damages, though he could not rule on what the amount of the damages could be.

He wrote: “These, however, are not issues that the court can resolve as a matter of law. A jury must decide what damages are, and whether those damages were within the reasonable expectation of the parties when they entered the Emerald Club Contract.”

And those words no doubt sent a chill down the backs of the Professional Basketball Club LLC.

Judge Richard A. Jones

“He did a very smart thing,” said Seattle attorney Michael A. Maxwell. “The case appears to be unique, and where there is no precedent to rule on, you turn it over to a jury. In effect, the judge ruled that a Seattle jury would decide the amount of the damages. I doubt that was what Bennett wanted to hear.”

Maxwell believes that Bennett does not want to take the stand on the record in Seattle and does not want to face a jury.

Griffin agrees. “Anything can happen with a jury, and anything is a scary place to be for them.”

Both point to language in the summary judgment that calls out the PBC for “deceptive practices.” Judge Jones clearly spelled out a pattern of deception. If the case goes to jury in January as planned, the jury is going to hear one hell of a lot of information that, frankly, Bennett doesn’t want out. You know, like emails from the NBA telling Bennett that the Emerald Club brochure was a bad idea.

I say ‘if’ because it’s likely Bennett will want to settle.

“I’d bet he’s dialing his phone like crazy right now trying to get a deal done,” said Maxwell.

Cheering the case on from the bleachers is former season ticketholder Eric Tirnauer, a former Emerald Club member.

“It’s great,” said Tirnauer, a rehabilitation therapist in Seattle. “When I got the Emerald Club brochure in 2007, I definitely thought it meant they would ride out the lease. My wife and I purchased the tickets in the belief we could buy the same seats at the same price for the following two years. This lawsuit is proof that we were misled.”

Tirnauer is understandably bitter about the loss of the Sonics. A long time fan who moved to Seattle in part to be closer to the team, he has tried to put the hard feelings behind him, but some pain still bleeds through.

“I still haven’t been back to a Starbucks and never will,” he said. 

But is money enough to heal the wounds?  “No,” he said. “There isn’t enough money to replace the pain of losing the team. But it is a chance to flip Bennett off one last time. I really hope they win the case.”

Tirnauer probably isn’t alone in thinking that every little hurt helps. Nickels lost his job, the Oklahoma Thunder is a pathetic excuse for a team, and Bennett and co-owner Aubrey McClendon have been hurt by the economy (McClendon had to sell his prized wine collection to raise capital, poor fellow). On the other hand, we don’t have the Sonics.

But we have this lawsuit. For now, it’ll do. It’ll do.

You can buy that Sonics pin for $35 at Gasoline Alley Antiques.