Question for Sports Law

[Jim Rome]

Did you read the story in Sports Illustrated when Mike Price got fired at Alabama? Seems Coach Price is angry about the story, and is suing Time, Inc. for $20 million.

<A HREF="http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/football/college/news/2003/06/20/price_lawsuit_ap/" TARGET=_blank>http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/football/college/news/2003/06/20/price_lawsuit_ap/</A>

Does he have a case? Is there any reason the magazine should be sweating this?

[Greenwich Pony]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Jim Rome:
<B>Did you read the story in Sports Illustrated when Mike Price got fired at Alabama? Seems Coach Price is angry about the story, and is suing Time, Inc. for $20 million.

<A HREF="http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/football/college/news/2003/06/20/price_lawsuit_ap/" TARGET=_blank>http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/football/college/news/2003/06/20/price_lawsuit_ap/</A>

Does he have a case? Is there any reason the magazine should be sweating this?</B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, I'm not Sports Law, but I handle this type of case regularly and have dealt with the Time Warner people from time to time. Time Warner isn't sweating this. They're pretty good at collecting facts (they have made a few errors, but I doubt they'd do it on something as big as this) and have excellent fact checkers.

(putting it very generally) What Price will say is either that SI lied, or that he is a private citizen and that SI violated his privacy rights. I have a sneaking suspicion that SI has the former covered and Mr. Price won't want to parade out the sources and witnesses again. As to the latter, I think a strong argument can be made that Price is not a private citizen anymore, since the Bama job is so high profile, and as a public personage, SI was entitled to publish what they saw as news from legitimate sources.

As to the sources of the information, which Price may also want to attack, well... SI had to be a able to reasonably believe that the source was in fact telling the truth (there's a laugh test). If it comes down to "he said, she said" and she has even the barest shred of credibility, SI is laughing all the way to bank why Price has just made things worse for himself.

[Greenwich Pony]

Sorry, the computer wouldn't take the darn thing...

[PK]

Hey GP, when you get the time, you can click on the edit icon at the top of those duplicate post and delete them...if you are so inclined to do so.

[Hoofprint]

Good stuff, Greenwich! Thanks for the insight.

[Sports Law]

GP did a great job of explaining the issues. As has become the case far too often, it appears that what we have here is a situation of shooting the messenger. SI didn't go to the topless club, SI didn't show the poor judgement of putting itself in a position to violate the ethics clause of a contract - Price did.

He was a public employee, his contract is probably available through an Open Records Act request and for him to claim that he is not a public figure is ludicrous (wasn't there a high profile press conference to announce his hiring??? Bet he was to have a coach's show, too!). As GP said, as long as the facts are reasonably supported, then SI should be in pretty good shape.