Ruling could help indoor sports
San Diego lawyer plans similar lawsuits in Bay Area counties
A San Diego lawyer who won a court ruling that could pave the way for the return of all youth sports said he planned to file similar lawsuits in Alameda and San Francisco counties as well as other Bay Area jurisdictions.
Stephen C. Grebing, the managing partner of Wingert Grebing of San Diego, said the two suits were expected to be filed sometime Tuesday with others, including one in Santa Clara County, coming as early as this week.
The legal moves come on the heels of a ruling by San Diego County Superior Court Judge Earl H. Maas III on Friday shortly after Gov. Gavin Newsom announced California was loosening its rules on outdoor sports statewide. Indoor sports still are sidelined with stricter rules before they are permitted.
The judge granted a temporary restraining order allowing indoor and outdoor high school and youth sports to resume in San Diego County “as long as the(y) follow the same or similar COVID-19 protocols imposed for competition in professional and/or collegiate sports within the county.”
State officials have disputed that judge’s interpretation and San Diego County has moved forward under the revised guidelines released by the Department of Public Health.
The ruling drew almost immediate interest from California youth sports advocates fighting for indoor competition. They interpreted the ruling as a potential path to a longshot season in basketball volleyball and some other sports. Grebing said Tuesday that he received 50 emails in the first five hours after the decision.
One email came Saturday from Randy Bessolo, the boys’ basketball coach at University High School in San Francisco.
“The order is not limited in scope to any specific sport, or any type of contact versus non-contact, indoor versus outdoor, or what have you. It says all youth sports can be played as long as they’re played safely with the appropriate protocol in place.”
— Wingert Grebing managing partner, Stephen C. Grebing
“Yeah, I woke up Saturday morning angry,” Bessolo said.
Before contacting Grebing, Bessolo talked to a pair of players that he had coached since youth ball. Their immediate reaction: “Heck yeah, let’s go,” Bessolo said.
The coach said Tuesday the players, juniors Adrian Di Lena and Grant Lyon, are suing San Francisco over its youth sports guidelines. Both players grew up attending St. Stephens Catholic School in San Francisco, where they first met Bessolo, but have gone to different high schools — Di Lena at St. Ignatius and Lyon at University.
“It takes some conviction to do this and put yourself out there like that,” Bessolo said. “They were a logical starting point, and both of them want to fight and make it happen.”
Their lawsuit will take a similar approach to the one in San Diego County, Grebing said. The San Diego case was modeled after previous suits that helped youth and high school sports return in other states, he added.
The San Diego case featured two arguments: youth athletes were not given the same chance to play as their peers in college and the pros, and that by prolonging the shutdown, studentathletes would suffer irreparable harm.
The plaintiffs filed supporting letters from Dr. Monica Gandhi, a professor of medicine at UC San Francisco, and San Diego District Attorney Summer Stephens. The state, acting as the primary defendant, presented only “secondary and derivative” evidence, the judge wrote.
State attorneys presented a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that the judge said supported the plaintiffs — fewer than 10 percent of COVID-19 cases in the United States had occurred in children ages 5 to 17.
Within five hours of the ruling, Grebing said he knew he would soon have a dozen or more new complaints to handle. Grebing said he has plaintiffs lined up in Contra Costa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Marin and Santa Cruz counties. Outside of the Bay Area, other lawsuits are expected to be filed in Sacramento, Fresno and San Joaquin counties, Grebing said, totaling 10 to 15 by the end of the week.
Despite Friday’s ruling, high school sports did not immediately resume in San Diego County. Grebing said a number of coaches with protocols in place were locked out of their facilities Monday.
“They thought it was consistent” with the new state guidelines, Grebing said. “I said, no. The order is not limited in scope to any specific sport, or any type of contact versus noncontact, indoor versus outdoor, or what have you. It says all youth sports can be played as long as they’re played safely with the appropriate protocol in place.”
Counties that have not held professional or college games could prove more challenging for plaintiffs, Grebing said. San Mateo County, for example, has been a difficult place to find a discrepancy in the guidelines, he said.
Santa Clara County’s strict rules might make the case there more difficult as well, Grebing added. Can youth athletes claim unfair treatment if college and professional teams were not permitted to play in the county for a period of time?
“They kicked the 49ers out,” Grebing said. “So that’s going to be a tough one, to be honest with you.”
Monday evening, Grebing met via Zoom with a group of more than 50 Bay Area high school basketball coaches, organized by Bessolo and Miramonte High’s Chris Lavdiotis. They said they intend to file lawsuits in every county in the region as part of a three-pronged approach they have modeled after the successful effort to get state officials to loosen outdoor sports guidelines.
Bessolo and Lavdiotis formed the Bay Area Basketball Coaches Alliance that is similar to the Golden State High School Football Coaches Community cofounded by Serra High’s Patrick Walsh. The basketball coaches said they are coordinating with the Let Them Play CA group led by Brad and Kristen Hensley of Carlsbad.
Walsh, Serra’s football coach, has called on leaders in other sports to take action.
“The courts are supporting this endeavor,” he said. “Is it legal or is it illegal? There’s an interesting concept. And that the court granted a temporary restraining order because they felt it was illegal to not allow kids to play sports. And, at that point, the state did not have any witnesses or evidence to support otherwise.”