Oakley Takes Next Step in MSG Lawsuit

While the Knicks have been riding the high of the Leon Rose era and aspiring toward an NBA championship this year, their Owner, James Dolan, has been fighting a legal battle against one of their former stars. Many of you will remember the infamous incident between Dolan and former Knicks star Charles Oakley in 207. Oakley was forcible removed from a Knicks basketball game and subsequently sued MSG and Dolan for battery and assault. After a complicated few years of motions and remands, the suit has finally reached the discovery stage of litigation. Discovery entails both parties accumulating evidence and requesting evidence from the opposing side to help build their own respective cases. Of course, like many stages of the legal process, Oakley and MSG have reached an impasse on their discovery requests.

Oakley has requested to depose (question) Dolan himself and requested production of Dolan’s emails with 20 MSG custodians over a four year period. MSG argued against this request stating it was unduly burdensome and countered by offering 5 individuals to produce relevant emails sent between February 8, 2017 and March 1, 2017. The individuals offered were  (2) a security or operations person identified by Oakley; (3) Lawrence Burian (former EVP, General Counsel); (4) Marc Schoenfeld (former SVP and Associate General Counsel); and (5) James Dolan. Oakley and Dolan/MSG could not come to an agreement on this matter and as a result, requested the court make a determination on the scope of discovery.

The ”scope of discovery” here is defined under Rule 26 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which states that “[p]arties may obtain discovery regarding any nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any party’s claim or defense and proportional to the needs of the case.” See USCS Fed. R. Civ. P. 26. The court will consider “the parties relative access to relevant information…the importance of discovery in resolving the issues…[and] whether the burden or expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit.” See Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1). Essentially, all evidence that could be relevant in the case should be produced in the discovery change unless the opposing side can show that it is overly difficult or expensive to obtain. If the requesting party proves its relevance, it falls to the opposition to refute its relevancy or prove its burden. See In re Subpoena to Loeb & Loeb LLP, 2019 WL 2428704, at *4 (S.D.N.Y., 2019).

1.      Deposition of James Dolan

Oakley seeks to question Dolan and MSG has refuted stating Dolan has no unique knowledge that other witnesses are incapable of conveying. However, Dolan was an eyewitness to the removal of Oakley, the force used to remove him, and will have personal observations made during removal. Further, Oakley has alleged that Dolan called over a security guard who he then signaled to remove Oakley with other security personnel. The court granted Oakley’s request to depose Dolan based on this information.

2.      Documents from James Dolan

Oakley seeks to obtain emails including 35 search terms over four years. MSG contends that this is an excessive search period which the court agrees. They stated that the emails during the four-year period are unlikely to be relevant to the isolated alleged assault/battery incident and that the discovery of such a long term would not be proportional to the needs of the case. They granted Oakley’s request for emails but only from February 8, 2017 to March 1, 2017 (the date of the incident and the three weeks following).

3.      Documents from Fifteen Witnesses

Finally, Oakley requests documentation from fifteen individuals who either gave statements about the incident, participated in the removal, or have claimed to have witnessed Oakley being abusive. The court has granted this request in full based on the need from Oakley’s side for this information and the extreme importance of eyewitness testimony in this case.

These orders by the court will move the litigation between Oakley and Dolan/MSG along, but don’t expect a resolution anytime soon. There is still quite a bit of bad blood between the two sides as Oakley publicly stated in March that he is not ready to return to MSG until Dolan apologizes and MSG has stated they never invited him back. In any case, this has been a long battle between the two sides approaching eight years and it seems to have no resolution in sight. I’ll be watching this case (and the Knicks) very closely for more updates.

Evan Mattel is a Junior Associate at the Law Office of Vincent Toomey. He has his J.D. from Hofstra Law and is the co-founder of the NIL Program there. He can be found on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-mattel-93a871182/.