Marist Red Foxes vs. Matthew Brady and JMU

JMU and Men’s Basketball Coach Matt  Brady have lost the lawsuit filed by Brady’s former employer, Marist University, against them for breach of contract (Brady) and tortious interference with a contract (JMU).  Since, believe it or not, yours truly is an actual, bonafide Esquire, I’m going to do a quick rundown in a modified version of my old law school briefing shorthand for you.  Whether or not you care for this format, the story is important, not just for JMU and Coach Brady, but also for it’s potential ramifications on college coaching contracts nationwide and the manner in which they are enforced.

Facts: Brady signed a contract with Marist to become their Head Coach.  Contract contained a clause where Brady agreed not to contact players he previously recruited at Marist if he left for another job without written consent.  Brady left without written consent and contacted players he previously recruited at Marist.  Some of those players ended up at JMU.

Claim: Marist sued Brady for breach of contract, which is self-explanatory. Marist also sued JMU for tortious interference with that contract.  In plain language, they said that JMU was fully aware of the provision of the contract and then consented to, and encouraged or participated in, the breach of the contract.

Posture: Case was filed in New York Supreme Court.  Note: In New York, Supreme Court is actually “regular” court, not the state’s highest court (or what we normally think of as “Supreme” Court in other states which in New York is actually called the NY Court of Appeals).  This means appeals are likely available.  My note: Also NY courts are obviously going to protect the interest of their state school (Marist) especially since the recruiting done at Marist would have been conducted with NY dollars. (Correction by eds.: Commenter JMU Rugby is correct in that Marist is private, though the Catholic part seems a bit vague right now.  Therefore it would not have been NY dollars and the NY Court would be much less likely to practice any protectionism – TD 5/22)

Holding: For Marist on both claims.

Notes: The interesting parts of this case are:

1) JMU was found liable.  Unfortunately, it seems pretty obvious Brady breached his contract, but since JMU had no actual contractual relationship with Marist, it’s noteworthy the court ruled for Marist on the tortious interference claim.  Important for Marist though because in the event significant financial damages are awarded, they won’t just be attempting to collect from a single, individual defendant, but can also scoop money from the Commonwealth’s coffers.

2) PLEASE, PLEASE remember that this was NOT an NCAA violation.  Those players had not formally committed to Marist and their was no allegation of actual tampering from a compliance standpoint.  This is simply about Brady’s breach of his contract with Marist and JMU’s role in that breach. 

The most important thing to come out of this case is yet to come – the damages award, for which JMU and Brady are due back in court July 26th.  Damages in a case like this are often extremely difficult to come by because coming up with a figure is too speculative a task.  While it seems the court should be able to evaluate how much money was used when Brady was recruiting on Marist’s behalf (phone calls, work time, recruiting visits, etc.), it’s hard to believe that will amount to anything that will crush the defendants financially. 

Good thing I'm not a Red Fox, JMU's FG % would go through the roof.

But Marist is also trying to recover for the financial damages incurred because they sucked the last two seasons, a fact they blame on Brady and JMU for allegedly stealing the players that had not actually committed to Marist in violation of Brady’s contract.  Marist was 1-29 last year, and while there seems little doubt they would have been better with some of the players in question, it seems far-fetched to think a court can evaluate a) how much better, and b) what the financial impact would have been.  For example, one of the players in question is Andre Seminov, who was out for the season with an injury last year.  Another player was Julius Wells, who would certainly have contributed (an avalanche of ill-advised shots with two hands in his face), but would he have accounted for a provable increase in ticket sales?

3) The larger impact this case might have on college coaching contracts.  While a large award may be good for Marist, this would certainly get the attention of coaches and their agents when it comes to these types of clauses.  Hard to say whether that’s a good thing.  Clearly these clauses place impediments on a coach’s ability to advance his own career through the lower levels.  While the school-shuffling big names like Rick Pitino and Roy Williams can certainly negotiate these out of their deals, makes it tough on guys like Brady who are trying to scale the ranks.  Also hard to say whether these clauses are actually good for the schools.  Tell me this – if you were a great young coach right now at say, Ouachita Baptist, with dreams of someday coaching in the ACC, would you accept an offer from Marist right now?  And if not, and Marist has to settle for a Sherman Dillard type (alum with no other options and a suspect resume), is that even good for them?

Here’s the basic story from Yahoo!’s “The Dagger” Blog by Jeff Eisenberg in its entirety:  http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/blog/the_dagger/post/A-Marist-lawsuit-could-have-big-ramifications-fo?urn=ncaab,256991

Good take from The SportsLaw Blog’s Gabe Feldman: http://sports-law.blogspot.com/2010/07/ny-supreme-court-upholds-marists-no.html

For my fellow law school dorks out there, the actual decision: http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/assets/pdf/BK161025719.PDF