Local officials ponder suing NFL, Raiders
The Oakland City Council and the Alameda County Board of Supervisors are in talks with a pair of out-of-town law firms looking to sue the NFL and the Raiders for upward of $500 million over the team’s impending move to Las Vegas.
“It wouldn’t cost us anything,” City Councilman Noel Gallo said Tuesday.
In a nutshell, the law firms approached the city and county with the idea of filing an antitrust suit against the league and the team. Lawyers from
the firms — Berg & Androphy in Houston and Weil, Gotshal & Manges of New York — recently flew to Oakland and asked local officials to add up how much they expect the Raiders’ exit will cost taxpayers. It’s quite a bit. “We still have that (nearly $80 million) bond debt for renovating the stadium to bring the Raiders back” from Los Angeles in the 1990s, Gallo said. “Plus there are the losses from future seasons that the team would have played here and the millions that we spent trying to put a stadium plan here.”
Gallo estimated the total losses could be as high as $500 million.
Assemblyman Rob Bonta, D-Alameda, has been pushing the city and county to sue over the Raiders’ departure — an idea that both rejected earlier when it looked like taxpayers would be asked to pay for it.
But Gallo said the law firms have agreed to take on the expense, which could run into the millions.
“That was a big change,” said Alameda County Supervisor Nate Miley, who also supports a suit. “When we were first approached, it would have cost Alameda and Oakland taxpayers.”
Gallo said the firms also have agreed to represent the city and county if the Raiders or the NFL countersue.
“We find this tireless effort ... at their own expense and strictly for the public good, to be remarkable and worthy of our support,” Gallo wrote in a letter to the Board of Supervisors.
It’s not entirely charitable — the law firms would get a third of whatever settlement or judgment they win.
“I think they have a valid lawsuit, and they ought to pursue it, because it’s the only way to get the attention of the NFL going forward,” said Jim Quinn, an attorney at Berg & Androphy who has successfully sued the league over both player free agency and the 2011 players’ lockout.
As for the odds of the suit happening?
“I hate to make predictions when you have politicians involved,” he said.
Gallo says at least three other members of the eight-person City Council are ready to support the lawsuit, which some backers also hope to use as leverage to gain a new franchise when the Raiders leave, probably after the 2020 season. But council President Larry Reid isn’t one of them.
“I don’t see how you get a judge to force the NFL or the Raiders to pay off that bond indebtedness when it’s our debt,” Reid said. “And if those who want us to join this suit think the NFL is going to commit to awarding another football franchise to Oakland, I don’t think they live in the real world.”
There’s another potential wrinkle: A couple of groups have expressed interest in negotiating with the city and county to develop the 130-acre Coliseum site. And despite assurances from the lawyers seeking to bring the lawsuit that it would not tie up the land, Reid said the city’s own attorneys have concluded otherwise.
“It will tie up the land for two years,” he said. “And I don’t want to run the risk.”
It just gets worse: Oakland may not be done paying for that shove delivered by City Councilwoman Desley Brooks to former Black Panther leader Elaine Brown at a Jack London Square restaurant.
An Alameda County jury hit Oakland with a $3.77 million verdict last year — then, for good measure, tacked on $550,000 in punitive damages against Brooks herself.
Now, Brown’s legal team is seeking $1.1 million in attorneys’ fees for the elder-abuse lawsuit they filed over the October 2015 push and fall that Brown suffered when she and Brooks got into an argument at Everett and Jones Barbeque.
The jury found that the councilwoman had pushed the then-72-yearold Brown over a row of chairs.
In a sworn declaration filed in Alameda County Superior Court, the former Panther leader said she had been turned down by several prominent Bay Area civil rights attorneys after they concluded her claim was good for no more than $20,000 to $25,000.
And that she was told it was going to be an uphill battle because Brooks is “a powerful Oakland politician.”
The Sausalito law firm Bonner & Bonner, however, decided her case had merit and “a high jury trial value,” Brown said.
And it appears they were right. Attorney Charles Bonner is now asking the city for fees of up to $700 an hour — plus expenses — for himself, his son and another lawyer, as well as for a half-dozen legal assistants. Total tab: $1.1 million.
Bonner did not return our call seeking comment, but he did tell the court that his fees are “consistent with the San Francisco Bay Area market rates for attorneys of comparable skill and experience and with court awards of attorneys’ fees in other cases.”
A spokesman for Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker, whose office defended Brooks, also declined to comment.
A hearing on the fees has been set for March 23.
San Francisco Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross appear Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KPIX TV morning and evening news. He can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call (415) 777-8815, or email matierandross@ sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @matierandross