Judge Asked to Dismiss Raiders’ Coliseum Suit

Citing what they call a flat contradiction in sworn testimony by Los Angeles Raiders owner Al Davis, lawyers for the Los Angeles Coliseum Commission have asked a Superior Court judge for a summary judgment throwing out the Raiders’ $9.5-million breach-of-contract suit against the commission.

The legal briefs submitted to Judge Dzintra Janavs say that Davis, in sworn testimony in 1983 in the Oakland eminent domain case against the Raiders, declared that everything in the agreement that brought the team to the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1982 was in writing.

Yet, the papers go on, Davis recently submitted a sworn affidavit in the present lawsuit saying that he had oral promises from the commission.

The point about oral promises is central to Davis’ contention that the Coliseum Commission breached what he has recently termed was an agreement by commission negotiators to modernize the stadium by revamping the regular seating at the same time the Raiders went ahead to construct luxury boxes on the Coliseum rim.

Irwindale Plans

Davis abandoned construction of the boxes last year, and a few months later announced he would pull the Raiders out of the Coliseum and build a stadium in suburban Irwindale, on grounds that the commission had not fulfilled its end of what he said was the oral bargain.

The commission, answering that there was no such bargain, later sued the Raiders for $57 million. The Raiders’ $9.5-million claim was made in a countersuit.

In the papers filed with the court, the commission’s attorneys note that in testifying under oath in the 1983 eminent domain case, Davis declared that the 1982 written agreement between the commission and the Raiders constituted a 10-year lease and “has all the points that would cover our arrangement with Los Angeles for that 10-year period.”

The commission attorneys contend this means he was saying there was nothing agreed to that was not in writing.

Commission attorney Marshall Grossman said in an interview that it is clear that either one time or the other--in 1983 or in the most recent affidavit--Davis was not telling the truth.

But in briefs filed with the court, Davis’ attorneys insist that even if Davis was inconsistent, his credibility should be examined during trial of the lawsuit and is not a matter for summary judgment.

“If (the earlier testimony) is admissible and admitted at a trial of the present case, and if inconsistent, the applicable rule is the elementary one that inconsistency goes to credibility,” Davis’ attorneys said.

And they repeated Davis’ recent sworn contention in this lawsuit that the 1982 agreement “incorporated . . . oral promises and commitments” and that the Raiders relied on these commitments in making the decision to move to Los Angeles.

A court hearing on the summary judgment motion will be held June 2.

Hearings on the Raiders/Coliseum Commission lawsuits were delayed this spring when the court file was lost and had to be reconstructed.

A supervising records clerk in the Superior Court, who asked not to be named, said this week that loss of the file was an “uncommon occurrence” and that the new file has been sequestered, meaning that those wishing to look at it can do so only under direct official observation.