Donald Sterling

Have thay been so LOYAL and supportive of their father or grandfather
as to justify his concern for their well-being????????

Did u quote his daughter denouncing him or repudiating him,,
in this thread???? Did thay EARN his loyalty, Firefly????

when talking about how his 5 year old granddaughter was denied candy by other children at school, "Because we don't give candy to racists," so he's aware how his children and grandchildren are being affected by this, and all the publicity about it.

And, if he loves and cares about them, he should give thought to what he'd be putting them through by dragging this out with a long legal battle. Maybe he will wind up doing that.

Sterling is in no way responsible for this barbarity, and should not pretend to be

I think he is setting a good example for his granddaughter.

You are also recommending that Sterling follow the Silver in caving in and sacrificing what is right and just in order to pacify the mob immediately,

You are also recommending that Sterling follow the Silver in caving in and sacrificing what is right and just in order to pacify the mob immediately, to my mind Sterling gets points for refusing. I think he is setting a good example for his granddaughter.

Have thay been so LOYAL and supportive of their father or grandfather
as to justify his concern for their well-being????????

Did u quote his daughter denouncing him or repudiating him,,
in this thread???? Did thay EARN his loyalty, Firefly????

His daughter denounced the kind of statements he made on that tape

good thing that Mr. Sterling knew he was being taped by his "archivist" (and that there is apparently someone else on the tape confirming that knowledge)

SI.com has learned that Clippers owner Donald Sterling has hired prominent antitrust litigator Maxwell Blecher, who has written a letter to NBA executive vice president and general counsel Rick Buchanan threatening to sue the NBA. The letter, sources tell SI.com, claims that Sterling has done nothing wrong and that "no punishment is warranted" for Sterling. Blecher also tells Buchanan that Sterling will not pay the $2.5 million fine, which is already past due. Blecher ends the letter by saying this controversy "will be adjudicated."
Blecher's letter makes clear what many have anticipated: Donald Sterling will not go down without a fight and that he is taking active steps toward litigation. A letter of this type is considered a precursor to the filing of a lawsuit. Blecher's letter offers no ambiguity about Sterling's intentions.
"We reject your demand for payment," the letter tells Buchanan, who on May 14 informed Sterling by letter that he must pay the $2.5 million fine.


Read More: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/nba/news/20140515/donald-sterling-nba-la-clippers-adam-silver/#ixzz31tqcuUkK

Blecher's letter goes on to identify two basic legal defenses for Sterling. First, Blecher claims that Sterling has not violated any article of the NBA constitution. The letter curiously references Article 35, which governs players' misconduct, and several other provisions. The NBA is expected to argue that Sterling violated Article 13(d) among other provisions. Article 13 (d) bars owners from violating contractual obligations, including the obligation that owners no engage in unethical conduct or take positions adverse to the NBA. Blecher does not explain how he intends to prove Sterling's racist remarks captured on the secret recording -- followed by Sterling's incendiary remarks to Anderson Cooper about Magic Johnson -- do not give rise to unethical conduct or positions adverse to the NBA.

Second, Blecher argues that Sterling's "due process rights" have been violated by the NBA. A due process claim may sound superficially reasonable. After all, Sterling was banned permanently from the NBA after a mere four-day investigation, without any formal proceedings. If the NBA were a federal agency or a state college, Sterling might have a good argument, as those are public entities that must provide safeguards found under the U.S. Constitution and state constitutions. The problem for Sterling is that the NBA is a private association and is not required to provide due process rights. Sterling, moreover, contractually assented to the NBA's system of justice through various contracts, including his franchise agreement to purchase the Clippers and the joint venture agreement, which indicates the NBA has binding authority over the teams.

Later in the article, Sports Illustrated outlines Sterling's defense, which looks surprisingly shaky to me:

he must know that the NBA is not a government and that the due process guarantees under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments do not apply

good thing that Mr. Sterling knew he was being taped by his "archivist"
(and that there is apparently someone else on the tape confirming that knowledge)

On double-checking, I see you're right to point out that Sterling consented to being recorded. This means I was wrong about the legal side of it, and it mellows my moral indignation a little.

But only a little, because the core point remains: Sterling is guilty of thinking impure thoughts. He is guilty of telling these thoughts to his girlfriend (according to him) or platonic friend (according to her lawyer), who recorded him for unknown purposes of his own, in what both sides reasonably believed to be a private conversation. None of this constitutes a breach of contract with anyone, nor is it properly the subject of a public scandal. To leak the recording, against the will of both the recordist and the recorded, was a serious breach of privacy, with no good reason to justify it.This is a tempest in a cable box, manufactured by a national outrage industry. Legal or not, I'm not buying this industry's product.

As long as the NBA meticulously follows its own constitution and rules regarding the Clippers sale, it will be difficult for Sterling to find a legal theory that would stand up in court, said Daniel Lazaroff, director of the Sports Law Institute at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

"This is not an antitrust issue. This is not a First Amendment issue," Lazaroff said. "It's a question limited to the interpretation of the NBA constitution and bylaws, and whether those terms are met."

It is my understanding that there is no appeal allowed of either the commission rulings or actions in the ownership agreement either to the courts or to a third party binding arbitration, and once more how legal can that be?

excessively asymmetric power relationship. (See, for example, Wikipedia's article on arbitration clauses.) But I don't see these exceptions applying to billionaire Donald Sterling, so I don't see how a court would sack the contract on these grounds. (Again, though, I'm not a lawyer, so my not seeing the way this would work doesn't mean there isn't one.)

USA Today also got a peek at the letter, and says Blecher wrote that Sterling's racist comments weren't deserving of "any punishment at all." The paper notes that Blecher represented Sterling when he sued the NBA for $100 million after the league fined Sterling $25 million for moving the Clippers from San Diego to Los Angeles (Sterling dropped the suit when the NBA lowered the fine to $6 million).

Sterling chose his lawyer well. At the top of Blecher's list of legal accomplishments is his 1983 win over the NFL when it tried to stop the Raiders from moving from Los Angeles to Oakland.

Like you I am not a lawyer however that sound like a completely asymmetric power relationship no matter how wealthy Sterling happen to be.

Strangely enough, though, Sports Illustrated doesn't mention the antitrust move as a possible part of Sterling's defense.

The league, sources say, believes it is on strong legal grounds. Sterling's own signature will ultimately come back to haunt him. He signed a series of documents that, in so many words, express that he agreed to whatever disciplinary steps are taken by the commissioner and his fellow owners. While a court could review the NBA's interpretation of the constitution, bylaws and other agreements, a court would accord Silver broad deference to interpret the language of these documents. As to an antitrust claim, sources say it would require a quixotic interpretation of the antitrust law for Sterling to prevail. He would have to show that the NBA and its owners have conspired against him in an anticompetitive way, thus harming the Clippers' value and his return on its sale. Antitrust attorney and law professor Chris Sagers tells SI.com he is pessimistic that Sterling would prevail. "[T]he only injury he'll be able to state would be that he is forced to sell when he doesn't want to and that he'll have to recognize taxable gain at an inopportune time . . . neither seem like an antitrust injury. Merely forcing the sale of the Clippers doesn't remove the Clippers from competition with the other NBA teams and with other entertainment products."

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/nba/news/20140509/donald-sterling-legal-analysis-nba-clippers/#ixzz31uV7TfCI

Under the general principles of contract law, one possible defense against a breach-of-contract charge is that the contract itself is illegal. Hence, as joefromchicago pointed out earlier, Sterling could get the charge dismissed by convincing a court that the NBA constitution establishes a trust, violating federal antitrust law

McCann, in SI, has mentioned a possible antitrust action in his other columns which have been posted or linked to in this thread. Here's one.

Antitrust attorney and law professor Chris Sagers tells SI.com he is pessimistic that Sterling would prevail. "[T]he only injury he'll be able to state would be that he is forced to sell when he doesn't want to and that he'll have to recognize taxable gain at an inopportune time . . . neither seem like an antitrust injury. Merely forcing the sale of the Clippers doesn't remove the Clippers from competition with the other NBA teams and with other entertainment products."

is working for the owners, not the other way round. If they agreed to fire him, he would be gone in an instant.