State Court Seeks Angels’ Response

The day after the city of Anaheim invoked the names of David Eckstein and Francisco Rodriguez to support its argument that the Angels should be stopped from using Los Angeles in their name, the state Court of Appeal asked the team for an argument of its own.

The appellate court Tuesday gave the Angels until March 9 to respond to the brief filed by the city Monday, which asks the court to overrule Orange County Superior Court Judge Peter Polos and block the team from playing as the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim until a trial can decide whether the name change violates the stadium lease.

Although most appeals fail, city attorneys were pleased that the appellate court did not reject the request outright. In the majority of cases, the appeal is denied without further action, said Andrew Guilford, the city’s newly hired co-counsel.

“We’re encouraged the Court of Appeal acted very quickly to review this important matter,” he said.

The appeal is the city’s last hope of preventing the team from starting the season under the new name. Michael Dessent, professor at California Western School of Law in San Diego, called Tuesday’s court decision “pretty routine.”

“Normally, if two powerful entities are going to the trouble of an appeal, they want to take a look at both sides,” he said.

Meanwhile, Polos is expected to rule today on the Angels’ request to throw out three of four counts in the city’s complaint, which could effectively gut Anaheim’s case. Polos had ruled that the Angels have “technically complied” with the lease clause requiring their name to “include the name Anaheim therein.”

Today’s ruling should provide an indication as to whether Polos equates technical compliance with legal compliance, said Sheldon Eisenberg of the Santa Monica law firm Bryan Cave.

In Monday’s filing, Guilford wrote that Anaheim would effectively be dropped from the team name “as abruptly as David Eckstein was shipped to St. Louis” and that the Angels “swung and missed like a batter facing a nasty slider from Frankie Rodriguez” in what the city called a weak response to one legal issue.

“It almost demeans the quality of the overall brief,” Dessent said of the baseball references. “It’s not significant, and it’s not worthy of the high standards a lawyer should be held to at the appellate level. It detracts from the merits of the case.”

Guilford, past president of the state bar, said using baseball references in a lease dispute reflects the case’s significance.

“Our culture is so closely intertwined with baseball that it adapts baseball metaphors,” he said. “These are perhaps a few awkward examples of how integral a part baseball plays in our life. I think it highlights the irreparable injury that occurs when you deprive the city of its identification with the team. I also believe you never go wrong when you try to be interesting.”

He was, however, factually incorrect. The Angels did not ship Eckstein to St. Louis; he chose to sign with the Cardinals as a free agent after the Angels did not offer him a new contract.

“It’s close enough to being correct,” Guilford said. “If you ask David Eckstein fans if he was dumped, they’d say he was dumped.”