Raiders Lose Stadium Suit
The Oakland Raiders lost its $1.2 billion lawsuit against the National Football League on Monday as jurors rejected claims that the league sabotaged a deal for a new stadium and forced the team to leave Los Angeles.
The team had accused the league of breach of contract and violations of NFL rules. But jurors dismissed claims that the NFL acted with "oppression, malice or fraud" in dealing with the team, which left Los Angeles in 1995 after negotiations fell through for the new stadium.
Superior Court Judge Richard Hubbell had asked the jury to reach one general verdict in favor of the Raiders or the NFL.
Raiders owner Al Davis moved the team from Oakland to Los Angeles in 1982, then back to Oakland in 1995. Davis attended the trial from start to finish and spent five days on the witness stand.
The Raiders claimed the NFL forced the team to leave the Los Angeles market by pushing for a second team to play at a new stadium proposed for Hollywood Park, in suburban Inglewood.
Davis said the second team would have crippled his team financially when it came to selling luxury suites and building fan loyalty.
In the lawsuit, he demanded more than $1 billion for the right to the Los Angeles market and to compensate the team for revenue allegedly lost because of the failed stadium deal.
The Raiders also sought unspecified punitive damages, claiming the NFL discriminated against the Raiders during the stadium negotiations.
The NFL said it offered to do more for the Raiders financially than had ever been done for any team in league history.
That included waiving $60 million in ticket revenue to help build the stadium and offering to hold at least two Super Bowls in Los Angeles if the Raiders agreed to the second team option.
The league claimed that Davis never made a commitment to the Hollywood Park stadium and only used the situation to get a better deal out of Oakland, where he eventually accepted a deal providing $63 million in upfront payments, loans and other benefits.
Davis had prevailed over the NFL in 1983 in an antitrust lawsuit that let the Raiders come to Los Angeles and cleared the way for other teams that want to pick up and move.
Los Angeles — the second-largest TV market in the country — has been without an NFL team since the Raiders and the Rams both left in 1995.
The NFL has no plans to expand beyond its current 32 teams, which means Los Angeles' only hope for a franchise would be to get an existing one to move here.
One question raised by the case was whether Davis is angling to move the Raiders back to Los Angeles.
He declined to comment on that possibility during the trial. But as part of a separate lawsuit against the city of Oakland, he asked a judge to let him out of a lease requiring the team to play at the Oakland Coliseum for 10 more years. That request was denied.
By KEN PETERS
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