Speaker 1: It's time to check in with Preston and Garret Handy
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are your accident and personal injury attorneys ready to assist
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Nobody does it better than vander Wealth. It is time
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is time play judge and Jury. What's the verdict on
the biggest headlines in sports and lots stopping a little
sports core brought to you by Handy It Handy and
each week we break down the real life legal drama,
intersecting with your favorite athletes, your favorite teams, your favorite leagues,
your contract disputure, nio chaos, the sideline scandals and Cormoran
battles that you love all the drama. We're diving deep
with Utah's most trusted injury attorneys, Garrett and Preston Handy.
We'll get them on the line here momentarily. Gonna delve
into a number of topics today. There's a couple of
things that are cooking in this crazy college athletic world.
Diego Pavia News. Three legal sports stories to watch and
follow in twenty twenty six. Let's welcome in our favorite
injury attorneys. We got Garrett and Preston Handy on the line. Gentlemen,
how are you guys doing?
Speaker 3: Mayy doing good? Ben, Happy New Year.
Speaker 2: Happy New Year to you guys as well. Appreciate you
guys showing up, showing out.
Speaker 1: Guys.
Speaker 2: I want to start off the conversation if I could.
We don't have to get into it initially, but have
you guys been have you guys been monitoring the demand
Williams case at all that i'mon Williams situation. He signed
an nil contract and then with you Dub. And then
then uh after like a day after he he entered
the portal, and now he's he's hired a lawyer. His
agent has dropped him. He's he's got legal representation. Have
you guys seen anything on this?
Speaker 4: Yeah, we we have actually been following that. In fact,
Preston and I were just talking about it before getting
on with you. It is this is uh, I don't
know where we're going to see him end up, but
it looks like the bet is maybe LSU. But there's
been all kinds of drama around this right and and
the latest thing is his agent has dropped him, and
the agent cited, you know, philosophical differences. But obviously this
agent phils Burned where he puts together a great what
he thinks is a great deal, and demon must have
thought it was a great deal too. He signed a
contract with you Dubb, and then a couple of days
later he says he's going to enter the portal. But
the issue now is you Dubb saying well, we're not
going to put your name in the portal because the
school has to be the one to do that, and
we're not going to facilitate this because that's in our
contract and we're going to hold you to it. And so,
like you said, Ben, he's hired an attorney, And so
I think we're shaping up to see a legal battle
here that I'm sure we'll be talking about.
Speaker 2: So, like, we've seen a couple of schools try to
hold student athletes accountable for NIL contracts, haven't we. I mean,
I don't know how many we have seen, but I
think you guys have monitored a few of these situations.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, we can jump into one of our stories
right now, Ben. The one that's really hit is Damon Wilson.
And the story here is he played at the University
of Georgia, really good ed rusher. He played in twenty
three and twenty four, and at the end of twenty
twenty four he, you know it's disputed, reached an NIL
deal with Georgia that said would pay him three hundred
and ninety grand over thirteen months. Well that was in
December of twenty four. Come January twenty five, he says,
I'm out of here. I'm going to Missouri. And so
he went to Missouri, had a pretty good year, and
here a few weeks ago, University of Georgia they sued him,
and this is this is kind of a first of
its kind. There's been a few close to this. But
they sued him and basically they claimed, you breached our contract.
And here's where it gets interesting. Ben, they'd only paid
him thirty thousand dollars. So most people are looking like, well,
wait a minute, Georgia, thirty thousand dollars, what's really your damage?
Does he oh, you thirty thousand dollars? Okay?
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 3: They claimed that there was a liquid dated damage portion
of his contract that basically said, if you breached the contract.
I mean, people put this in contracts for both sides.
If you breach this, there's a liquidated damage. And there's some,
you know, some speculation that it was one point two million,
so you know, almost four times what his contract was,
three four times of contract. So they sued him over this,
and the thing we're talking about today is now he
has countersued him, countersued Georgia, and they're coming after him hard.
And basically, what his attorney is saying is that they're
claiming that there was really never any agreement. They claimed
that there was a term sheet signed, and the term
sheet basically said there will be a legal document later
and you can go get a lawyer to review this.
And that was never the term sheet was never into
They claimed that Georgia then they failed to enter his
name in the portal transfer and by doing so they
they prevented him from getting nil dills. They claiming, they're
claiming business interference. They're also claiming defamation that by you know,
basically suing him and going out there and saying, hey,
this guy's dishonest, he breached the contract, he owes us money,
you know, and so they're coming after Georgia hard. They're
basically his attorney said, hey, Georgia appears intent on making
an example of someone. They just picked the wrong person.
Damon never ended into a contract with them. I don't
see how Georgia thinks intimidation and litigation will help their
recruitment efforts. So that's what's going on there. And Garrett
mentioned a couple, the couple that kind of you know,
came up to the line here. The Tennessee quarterback. I
won't even try and say his name. He had like
a twelve million no, he had a big deal with Tennessee,
had a good year and he said he said Nico
said I'm out of here, and Tennessee said, we're not
letting you out of this. You know, we're not gonna,
you know, bend to your more demands, and so he
left and went to UCLA and reportedly didn't get as
much there. The other one was this University of Florida quarterback,
which was on the other side of it. He sued
University of Florida, claiming that his NIL deals had not
been paid. So there haven't been all these ones where
a university has actually gone after a player. And that's
what we're seeing now, and that's maybe what we'll see
with you Dub, you know, going after you know, the
what's his name, Damon, I don't know, Williams, come on,
come on. So that's it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, crazy times, guys.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: Any prognostication about this particular U DUB situation, like what
what what could play out here? Do you think and
what judgments will it go to court? Do you think?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 4: I think we're definitely going to see a lawsuit. I
don't know that it'll go to court, but I mean,
my guess is he's going to get to go he's
going to get out of it. I think what we've
seen is schools are just I don't think I think
athletes have the upper hand right now with anti trust law,
and it's a little up in the air and things
are not settled, and I that's my sense.
Speaker 2: Anyway, crazy times in the college football world. Let's check
in on Riverside Church, a sexual abuse trial to begin
in this week. What's going on here.
Speaker 3: Well, here's how this gets into sports court. Ben Riverside
Church was a kind of a groundbreaking They sponsored an
all star basketball team back in the seventies in the
early eighties, where they brought in players and you know,
gave him you know, tuition to you know, good prep schools,
They gave him equipment, they gave him gear. They traveled
all around the country. This was way before comp leagues
going on, you know where there's multi you know players
going around to comp leagues. It was kind of even
before AAU, which was you know, even pioneering. Then. Well,
a guy named Darryl Powell played for him back in
the seventy eighties. Started when he was thirteen, and at
the time there was a gentleman, a prominent multi millionaire
New York lawyer named Ernest Lorch, and he was the
coach of the Riverside basketball team. He was part of
the president of the board of trustees Riverside Church, and
he allegedly was a big times sexual abuser too. So
Darryl Powell has sued not Ernest Lorisch, but he sued
Riverside Church and the claim his legal claim is essentially that, Hey,
Riverside Church, this guy was an authorized agent of you,
and he was acting under your supervision. You failed to
properly supervise, You failed to protect the players, namely him,
and therefore you're responsible for his acts. Well, they don't
dispute that the abuse happened. There was a widespread and
this is kind of a test case. There's several other cases.
And understand, these are players that are in their mid
sixties now that played back in the seventies and they're
bringing these lawsuits now. And what allows them to bring
these lawsuits is interesting. We all know about the statue's limitations,
but there's a act called the New York State Child
Victims Act, which allows alleged victims of sexual abuse to
bring these claims years later and not be hit with
a statute of limitations. Well, this thing's getting ready to
go to trial. The main issue is did they have
a duty of supervice and did they know or should
they have known what was going on? And the Riverside Church,
I mean, this is a potentially a bomb and they
are they're fighting this and they've gone to trial before that.
They are finally what's called motions of lemony. That's where
you go to the judge and say, he, judge, there's
certain evidence that we don't think should come in. And
the kind of the standard is not to geek out
is they're saying this evidence is more prejudicial than it
is having probative value, letting the jury hear things that's probative.
Some of the things that they're trying to keep out
are they're saying he shouldn't be able to bring claims
of abuse that happened after he turned eighteen because he
was an age of majority. They're also saying that they
shouldn't be able to bring in evidence that kind of
large majority of some of these alleged victims were African American.
They're saying there was racial disparity there. They're also claiming
all these things. They're saying you shouldn't be able to
bring in what they call the golden rule, meaning to
the jurors, Hey, if this happened to you, what would
you award. Another one is they said that you shouldn't
be able to bring in issues of public safety, and
these are safety concerns and all kinds of things. So
we don't know how the judges ruled on that. This
is kind of a test case. We'll see what happens
with it. It's going to go to trial next week.
There's been no talk of settlement. It's kind of surprising,
you know, claims of someone that's sixty in his mid sixties.
You know, he's claiming years of you know, emutional emotional
abuse or emotional distress and emotional issues, mental health issues
stemming from this. He actually went to Maris College and
played and dropped out, claiming that that was the reason
he dropped out. So it's kind of a powder keg.
We'll see what happens. I'm sure we'll talk about the
results of it here on Sports Court.
Speaker 2: Another k here, Scott Tyler Skagg's family reaches a settlement
with the Angels during deliberation wrongful death case. We've discussed
this in the past. Now it seems like it's been settled.
Give us an update.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're right, we've talked about it, but it is
finally settled and done, and that settled right before the
jury was about to issue a verdict. And so that's
what's kind of interesting about it. I mean, this case
went on for five years, and the trial itself was
into it I think about nine weeks at the time.
And so again just really quick background on this. Tyler
Scaggs was a picture with the Angels and had a
drug abuse problem. And what ended up coming out was
an Angel's employee who was a communications director of some sort,
had supplied the sentinel laced opioid to Tyler Scaggs, which
ultimately he overdosed and died. And so this Eric Kaye
that was his name, the employee. He's serving a federal
prison sentence over this drug charge. But the family of
Tyler Skaggs has brought a wrongful death lawsuit against the
Angels organization saying again, hey, you guys knew, or you
know you knew about Tyler's drug problem and and you
knew apparently or should have known that this employee was
essentially the drug dealer, and so you guys have responsibility
in this. And so anyway, very contentious case. Like I said,
it has been stretched out for years and years. But
what ended up I think breaking the scene open and
leading towards the settlement is you know, jurors, while they're deliberating,
if they have questions about the law, they can you know,
come out and uh, you know, that question gets presented
to the judge, and the judge can kind of clear
up you know, what the what the law is for
them on how they're you know, the ground rules for
making their decisions. And one of the questions they had
was about Skag's future earnings. The other question they had
was about punitive damages. And I think what happened is
the angels realized they saw the writing on the wall
and thought, hey, we might be about to get hit
with a big verdict. Let's work. Let's see if we
can work out a deal. And they did. And sure enough,
after you know, post post subtlement and and and the
jury being released, they you know, you can talk to
those jurors, and the jurors indicated that they they were
going to award it sounds like ten millions of dollars
to the plaintiffs in this case. So the the case
that's done now and it's it's all settled.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I hate Uh. I mean, look opioids and and
and things of addictive nature. Man, they are they are devastating.
And uh, I'm glad this is settled.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: We've talked about Damon Wilson and the Demon Williams situation.
Let's move on to Diego Pavia versus the nc doub A.
Pavia seeks order preventing NCUAA from in twenty eligibility role.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: This has been a bit of a controversial thing in
the h in the college football world over the last year.
Can juco players get that extra year or two of
eligibility doesn't count against their eligibility when they're playing nj
C Double A football?
Speaker 4: Give us an update? Yeah, those those are the issues.
And of course Diego Pavia was the the initial guy
who got another year, right, He got the temporary restraining
order a year ago which allowed him to play last season,
and now it looks like he wants yet another year.
The guy he came in second in the Heisman voting,
of course, but as far as his draft prospects go,
it looks like he's probably a late round pick and
so I you know, he's indicated that he is, you know,
headed for the draft. But what he's doing here and
there's several other plaineffs as well, and he's kind of
taking the lead. He's got the big name in this.
But it just like you said, Ben, I mean, this
comes down to when does your D one eligibility clock
start to run and is it going to count these
JUCO years that you play or not. And of course
Papa is arguing that no, those JUCO years shouldn't come
into play at all. These aren't you know, those aren't
governed by NCAA rules. Why should my years at a
JUCO count? But I mean he's twenty three years old
and at some point you've graduated from college and moving on.
But they want another year and these are all antitrust arguments.
That's there lying legal argument that they're making, right, is
that they've got an ability to compete in the marketplace
for their nil and that they should get another year
to do it. So again, it's a little more of
the same that we've been seeing, but it's it's still
just continually being a moving target on this issue.
Speaker 2: What are some of the legal sports stories to watch
in twenty twenty six gentlemen.
Speaker 3: Well, go away, diego, Pavi is my Well, we're not
going to talk about in twenty twenty six, so we're
just going to rapid fire these. I'll go first and
then Garrett. The first one is that we're going to
look out for is, you know, Major League Baseball and
then Players Association are coming to the end of their
collected bargaining agreement and it doesn't look like the sides
are you know, they're already talking about it doesn't look
like they're anywhere close to getting a deal, and they
need to get a deal done pretty soon or what
Potentially one of the big issue is there the Major
League Baseball is pushing for a salary cap and they've
never had a salary cap. The NBA has it, the
NFL has it, and it's all we talked about, you know, hey,
major League Baseball players. I mean, look what they're playing,
show paying show hey Otani, you know, and and it
allows some of the big teams to be able to
really pay players, you know, the teams with all the
money in the big markets. So there's obviously the players
do not want a salary cap, and so that'll be
a big issue. The question is will they get into
a lockout, will that result in litigation? Wait and see?
Speaker 2: All right, gentlemen, Well that's the verdict on today's Sports Court,
brought to you by Handy Law Utah dot Com. Handy
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Speaker 3: Hey, thanks Ben, take care all right.
Speaker 2: We'll catch up with again next week. That was Handy
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