Raiders Suffer 2 Sharp Losses in Fights With NFL, Coliseum

The Los Angeles Raiders were dealt devastating blows in both state and federal courts Monday, seeing their $9.5-million claim against the Coliseum Commission dismissed and suffering a serious reversal in their damage suit against the National Football League.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Dzintra Janavs, agreeing with Coliseum Commission attorneys that the commission had made no binding oral promises to the Raiders about renovating the stadium, dismissed the Raiders’ countersuit to a $57-million Coliseum suit charging the team with breach of contract.

The decision leaves the Raiders with no court claims pending against the commission.

Earlier in the day, U.S. District Judge Terry Hatter Jr. decided to permit the NFL to argue in a new trial that the Raiders should pay the league for moving the team south from Oakland, rather than the league having to pay damages for wrongfully impeding the move.

Long Legal Dispute

Hatter’s ruling constituted a new turning point in a convoluted case that has already consumed eight years and millions of dollars in legal fees. In the same proceedings, the Memorial Coliseum and its attorneys last year were paid $29.5 million in damages by the NFL. That payment will not be affected by the latest development in the federal case.

Raiders attorneys, led by former San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto, said they were flabbergasted by Hatter’s ruling and would appeal it to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The team’s attorneys were unavailable for comment on Janavs’ ruling, but were expected to appeal.

Coliseum Commission attorneys Marshall Grossman and Frank Kaplan had moved for summary judgment in Superior Court on grounds that Raiders owner Al Davis had contradicted himself in sworn testimony, saying in one case that only a written contract with the Coliseum was applicable to arrangements for the team playing there, and in another case that there also were oral agreements.

Davis announced that the team would quit the Coliseum and move to Irwindale last summer after what he declared was a breach of an oral promise to renovate the stadium at the same time he built luxury boxes along the rim of the arena. Recently, however, uncertainty has arisen as to whether the Irwindale deal will go through because of financing problems.

The damage suit with the NFL had originally seemed to be going the Raiders’ way.

Five years ago, a federal court jury found that the NFL had violated antitrust laws in seeking to block the Raiders’ move in 1980 and awarded the team $34.6 million in basic and punitive damages, a sum which, with accrued interest, by now would have reached about $57 million.

But later, the 9th Circuit Court said the $11.5 million in basic damages to the Raiders, before trebling for punitive damages, should be offset by any increased value in the Raider franchise as a result of its relocation in Los Angeles from Oakland. It ordered a new trial on the amount of damages to the Raiders.

At the time, it appeared that the Raiders’ damages could conceivably be reduced to zero, but that there was no way the team could wind up owing the NFL money.

Hatter, by his ruling Monday, opened the way to this possibility. Now, if the NFL could show that the franchise increased in value by more than $11.5 million, it would be entitled to compensation for the difference from the Raiders.

The Hatter ruling also means that the NFL’s attorneys will be permitted to argue, not withstanding the antitrust finding against the league, that the Raiders were in breach of contract with the NFL when they moved the team.