A five-year season ticket holder and San Diego County resident has sued the National Football League (NFL) for allegedly violating its relocation policy by transferring the San Diego Chargers to Los Angeles.
Robert Kirkbright filed the complaint in San Diego Superior Court through his attorney, Shannon Nocon. The Chargers and the NFL are named as defendants.
“He’s filing this lawsuit obviously based on what the St Louis lawsuit was able to provide for St. Louis,” said Randy Karraker, 101 ESPN Radio morning host.
As previously reported in the St. Louis Record, the NFL narrowly evaded a jury trial last year after settling a similar case in St. Louis for $790 million following Rams owner Stan Kroenke's decision to move the Rams to Los Angeles. St. Louis attorneys received $276.5 million.
“If there were one differentiation between the two lawsuits, it would be that St. Louis was ready to break ground on a stadium, and Spanos never even had an offer available to him in San Diego,” Karraker told the Southern California Record.
The Chargers' franchise is owned by Dean Alexander Spanos.
The complaint alleges that there were plans by city officials to build a new stadium or improve an existing one, Qualcomm Stadium, at the request of Spanos and that by not following through, the defendants enriched themselves.
But Karraker said the Qualcomm Stadium is not a viable NFL stadium anymore.
“The last time I was in it was 2014, and I don't think there's any way that the Chargers could have gone to another city and not enriched themselves,” he said. “When the Rams moved to LA, if the Chargers would have come to St. Louis and played in the dome here in St. Louis, I think they would have enriched themselves. I don't know that there was a scenario in which the Chargers could have relocated and not enriched themselves.”
Last month, another Diego resident, Ruth Henricks, lodged a similar but separate lawsuit against the league, all NFL team owners, and the city of San Diego, alleging that the League and the Chargers failed to negotiate in good faith and had kept secret their intention to move for 16 years.
But Karraker is doubtful that either lawsuit will garner the monetary result that St. Louis litigation secured.
“Anybody who was doing their due diligence in terms of San Diego trying to keep the Chargers in San Diego should have been quite familiar with the relocation guidelines and done everything they could to have San Diego adhere to those guidelines but they didn't,” he added.