The University of Nebraska football team has not been fairing well lately in its football rivalry with the University of Oklahoma. So, last year, a Nebraska lineman got confused and thought that NU was going to play the OU Spirit Squad instead. Oklahoma criminal authorities are not pleased (bugmenot login: “privatecitizen@msn.com”; password: “password”).
The question being batted around the sports world the past couple of days is whether the suspension of Temple University basketball coach John Chaney is sufficient punishment for Chaney directing a goon on his team to hammer an opposing team’s player, resulting in the player suffering a broken arm.
My question is different: How much will Chaney and Temple have to pay in money damages to the player? Looks to me that the liability phase of that civil case is a dead cinch winner for the injured player.
Update: Although I wouldn’t want him sitting on the jury if I am representing the plaintiff, Greg Skidmore over at the Sports Law Blog has a nice analysis of the potential civil liability arising from Coach Chaney’s actions. Also, Professor Palmer over at the Sports Economist is already thinking about potential damage calculations. Sounds like a budding expert witness on damages to me! ;^)
In the key strategic decision of the criminal trial of former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers, Reid Weingarten advised U.S. District Judge Barbara Jones on Friday that he intends to call his client Mr. Ebbers to the stand on Monday.
The prosecution rested its case on Wednesday and the defense began its case on Thursday. The defense intends to conclude by the end of next week, which means the case should go to the jury early in the following week. Here are previous posts on the Ebbers case.
Inasmuch as juries in white collar criminal cases expect to hear from the defendant, the decision to have Mr. Ebbers testify is only surprising because of how well the trial appears to have gone to date for Mr. Ebbers.
In their case in chief, prosecutors relied almost entirely on former WorldCom CFO Scott Sullivan‘s testimony in attempting to prove that that Mr. Ebbers helped direct a massive accounting fraud that inflated WorldCom’s publicly-reported earnings and revenue numbers. Mr. Ebbers’ alleged motive was to forestall a decline in WorldCom’s stock price in an effort to protect his personal net worth, which was almost entirely based on WorldCom stock.
The Ebbers defense team has countered with a theory of the case that it was Mr. Sullivan who masterminded the fraud and that he concealed it from Mr. Ebbers, who was an “honest idiot.” This past week, the defense put on its first witnesses, including Bert Roberts, WorldCom’s former chairman, who testified that Mr. Sullivan did not implicate Mr. Ebbers when he was initially confronted with the $11 billion fraud in June 2002. Moreover, Cynthia Cooper, the internal WorldCom auditor who first uncovered the fraud, testified for the defense that Mr. Ebbers directed her to disclose negative accounting information to the WorldCom audit committee that Mr. Sullivan had wanted withheld.
Thus, the Ebbers defense team probably feels reasonably good at this point about establishing reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors. However, I agree with the decision to put Mr. Ebbers on the stand. Although a bad performance could give the jurors second thoughts about reasonable doubt, a good or even neutral performance could clinch an acquittal.
There is an old saying among investors and insolvency lawyers that a hotel is such a bad investment that no owner makes any money on it until at least three prior owners have gone bust.
Well, it appears that the City of Houston is about ready to experience the truth of that observation. Following on the news from last week that the downtown Hyatt Regency Hotel has been posted for a foreclosure sale, the Chronicle reports that two other hotels — The Magnolia downtown and the Crowne Plaza Hotel in the Medical Center — have defaulted on a total of $15 million in redevelopment loans that the City provided in connection with the recent rehabilitation of the hotels.
It occurs to me that if I were a downtown or Medical Center hotel owner, and the City of Houston had subsidized two competitors of mine with a tax on my business, I’d be rather angry right now.