Ja Morant civil case continues after mother says teen not open to settling
After nearly two years of litigation, Memphis Grizzlies star point guard Ja Morant’s civil suit over a punch thrown during a basketball game seems to be extending further following comments from the punched teen’s mother that they have no plans to settle the lawsuit.
Friday morning, Shelby County Circuit Court Judge Carol Chumney ruled that the attorneys for the teen he is accused of punching, Joshua Holloway, would be allowed to step off the case. The mother, Myca Clay, spoke with media after and said she is “not open” to settling the case.
“My main thing is to get justice for Joshua,” Clay said to reporters after the hearing. “This case has been going on for about 23 months and there are things that happened on this case that were unacceptable. I’m just trying to get justice for my son. I’m not open to settling the case. I just want justice, and the proper justice, and I think that the judicial system here failed us.”
The ruling comes just over a week after the attorneys representing Joshua Holloway, Rebecca Adelman and Leslie Ballin, filed a motion to withdraw from the case, citing a conflict in their representation.
The nature of the conflict was not mentioned in the motion, but Adelman said in court on Friday the conflict was “irreconcilable.” Clay, after the hearing, alleged ethical violations from all parties, and accused Adelman and Ballin of trying “to protect Ja Morant.”
Clay, though leveling allegations after the hearing, did not go into detail about what those violations were. Neither Adelman nor Ballin replied to requests for comment at the time of publication.
Ballin is currently defending a client in a criminal murder case. Adelman, in court Friday, said she had a death in her family and had to leave shortly after the hearing.
What happens next in the Ja Morant lawsuit?
Chumney, in allowing Adelman and Ballin to withdraw from the case, said Holloway would have 30 days to hire a new attorney or the case would continue with Holloway representing himself. Clay said Friday she was in talks with another attorney, but it was not clear if she had retained one as of Friday morning.
The lawsuit was filed in September 2022 and has been bogged down by a series of motions. It was originally scheduled to begin trial at the end of April this year, but that trial date seemed more and more unlikely to happen as scheduled after Chumney ruled that Morant would be allowed to claim self-defense.
That ruling shifted the onus on Holloway and his legal team to prove that Morant did not act in self-defense when he punched Holloway.
When it was filed, Holloway was a minor and still in high school and the lawsuit was sealed. Since then, he has gone on to play college basketball at Samford University and the lawsuit was unsealed after his 18th birthday.
What led to the lawsuit?
The incident that spurred the lawsuit happened at Morant’s home in Eads in July 2022. Morant had a group of younger Memphis-area basketball players at his house to play pick-up games, an event he said happened somewhat frequently prior to the altercation with Holloway.
After many games, witnesses said Holloway had grown frustrated defending Morant and would not properly check the ball with a chest pass, and was rolling the ball on the ground. After some back and forth, Morant and witnesses said Holloway threw the ball at Morant forcefully, hitting the NBA start in the face.
How the ball was thrown is unclear, with some witnesses saying it was thrown overhead like a baseball and others saying it was a forceful, errant chest pass. Whether or not hitting Morant in the face was intentional has also been disputed.
The two approached one another on the basketball court, and witnesses said Holloway had his fists balled and was in a fighting stance. This was when Morant hit Holloway, though its force was disputed. After the first punch, witnesses said Davonte Pack, a long-time friend of Morant’s, hit Holloway from behind and knocked him to the ground.
Pack is a co-defendant in the civil case and was later criminally charged with simple misdemeanor assault. Those charges were later dismissed. Morant was never criminally charged.
Lucas Finton is a criminal justice reporter with The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached at Lucas.finton@commercialappeal.com, or (901)208-3922, and followed on X, formerly known as Twitter, @Lucasfinton.