Raiders Get New Trial Against NFL

A judge Monday awarded the Oakland Raiders a new trial in their $1.2-billion lawsuit against the National Football League. The ruling may once again inject the team into calculations involving the future of professional football in Los Angeles.

The Raiders had sued the league, alleging that they “own” the L.A. market, and Monday’s ruling figures to complicate and delay efforts to persuade another NFL team to move here.

The NFL prevailed after a lengthy trial in the spring of 2001, but Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Richard C. Hubbell ruled that the Raiders are entitled to a new trial because of juror misconduct during deliberations.

Two incidents of juror misconduct stood out. One juror, according to legal papers filed in the case, repeatedly told the others that he hated the Raiders and owner Al Davis, and would “never find for the Raiders.” Another wrote out on butcher paper “statements of law for the jury to refer to and use,” and taped them to the wall--a violation of the basic rule that jurors get the law in a case from the judge only.

“This is a just and correct ruling,” Raiders chief executive Amy Trask said late Monday. “A number of jurors stepped forward and told our lawyers that, were it not for the misconduct, we would have won that trial.” She paused, then added, “The NFL was celebrating too soon.”

NFL Vice President Joe Browne said, “We’re disappointed. But we’ll discuss the decision with the lawyers during the next few days.”

The league has the option of appealing Monday’s ruling to a state appeals court in Los Angeles. Allen Ruby, the league’s chief trial attorney, said of Monday’s decision, “Everybody’s looking at it and thinking about it.”

The ruling was made amid uncertainty about prospects for the return of the NFL to Los Angeles. In recent months, there have been developments, but no concrete action, leaving Los Angeles in the same place the nation’s second-largest city has been in since 1995, when the Raiders and the Los Angeles Rams left town. The Rams relocated in St. Louis. The ruling could well add years to what has already been a drawn-out process--particularly if the case does go to trial again, because it would take months to get to that point and any verdict would undoubtedly be appealed.

In Monday’s order, Hubbell fixed a Dec. 3 hearing to set a new trial date.

“We’re going to show up on Dec. 3 to ask for a trial date as soon as we can go to trial,” Raiders attorney Larry Feldman said.

The NFL and, in particular, Commissioner Paul Tagliabue have made it plain that--given the right financial considerations--the league would love to return to Los Angeles. The league covets L.A. as a site for Super Bowls and, besides being the nation’s No. 2 TV market, this is the U.S. corporate home of the Fox TV network, one of the NFL’s television partners.

L.A. almost got an expansion franchise in 1999--a team that would have played at the Coliseum--but was outbid by Houston billionaire Bob McNair, who paid a $700-million franchise fee for a team now called the Houston Texans. The Texans began NFL play this season.

League officials have long maintained that the court case involving the Raiders played no role in expansion plans.

A number of teams with diminishing local revenue would appear to be candidates to move to Los Angeles. Among them are the San Diego Chargers, Indianapolis Colts and Minnesota Vikings.

The primary roadblock, however, is that there’s no facility in the area that would serve the interests of an NFL that has grown reliant in recent years on stadiums, new or renovated, that include such revenue producers as luxury boxes and naming-rights fees.

Earlier this year, a group backed by Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz proposed building a football stadium next to Staples Center. That group pulled out in June after encountering stepped-up competition from the Coliseum.

Interests backing the Coliseum have said in recent weeks that they are intrigued by the redevelopment of Chicago’s Soldier Field--a possible blueprint for renovation of the Coliseum.

Several NFL executives and team owners have said bluntly, however, that they have no interest in returning to the Coliseum.

Last month, the Pasadena City Council approved the hiring of John Moag, chairman of a Maryland sports investment banking firm, to assemble a financial plan aimed at promoting the Rose Bowl as a potential site. Moag helped broker the deal that, in the mid-1990s, took the Cleveland Browns to Baltimore.

The Los Angeles Superior Court case involving the Raiders centers on the team’s claim that the NFL undermined the Raiders’ plans to play in a proposed new stadium at Hollywood Park and that the team--which played in L.A. from 1982 to 1994--still “owned” the NFL’s rights to the Los Angeles market.

After an 11-week trial that included frequent references to the longtime enmity between Raiders owner Davis and the league, a jury on May 21, 2001, ruled in the NFL’s favor. The vote was 9 to 3. One more vote for the Raiders would have resulted in a hung jury.

The jury vote seemed to kill any hope the Raiders had of returning here.

The ruling Monday revives that possibility.

The ruling, said one NFL insider, speaking on condition of anonymity, “adds a complication. But at the end of the day, whoever it is has to have a place to play that’s economically viable. And I’m not aware of that being the case now.”

Davis and the Raiders also have a second $1-billion lawsuit currently in the courts, a case against the city of Oakland and Alameda County that claims he was promised capacity crowds that have not materialized.

A trial date has been pushed back to next year.

A win in the case conceivably could give the Raiders leverage to get out of their Oakland lease, which runs until 2011.

Much of the ill will between the Raiders and the league dates to the early 1980s, when the team beat the league in court in an antitrust case--giving the team legal validation for its move to L.A. from its original home in Oakland.