Opening day for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim moved up a month last week.
The baseball team still is set to start the season on April 5 in Anaheim against the Texas Rangers. But come early March, lawyers for the team are set to meet rivals from the city of Anaheim in a Santa Ana courthouse.
Anaheim’s City Council last week opted to pursue legal fights on two fronts: It plans to file a lawsuit against Angels Baseball LP and also voted to appeal last month’s denial of a preliminary injunction to stop the name change.
The city contends the lease at Angel Stadium of Anaheim requires the team to go by Anaheim Angels. Team owner Arturo “Arte” Moreno added Los Angeles to the team’s name in January in a bid to identify with a larger market.
Anaheim has “a significant legal argument” but an uphill battle on winning an appeal, said Sheldon Eisenberg, an entertainment litigation lawyer with the Santa Monica office of St. Louis-based Bryan Cave LLP, who has followed the case.
“They may well have a chance on this appeal, although it is tough to win,” he said.
A three-judge panel at the 4th District Appellate Court in Santa Ana is set to rule on the appeal within two months.
As for a trial, one likely wouldn’t start until well after the 2005 season. Cases generally take 12 to 18 months in Superior Court in Santa Ana, Eisenberg said.
That’s prompted some to question the wisdom of spending money on a trial: If the injunction appeal fails, the sports world will refer to the “Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim” for an entire season before a trial even begins.
And even if Anaheim were to win, the best it might get is damages from the team and not a name change.
Last week, lawyers for the Angels asked for most of the city’s suit to be thrown out, arguing the name change doesn’t violate its lease. Judge Peter Polos, who ruled against Anaheim on the injunctions, is set to consider the team’s motion on March 2.
Such moves are expected. But Eisenberg said he gives the Angels’ motion better odds than most since there doesn’t appear to be major factual disputes about what has happened up to now.
Also last week, the city beefed up its legal team by adding Andrew Guilford, a trial attorney with the Costa Mesa office of Los Angeles law firm Sheppard, Mullin, Richter and Hampton LLP.
Up to now, Anaheim solely has relied on Costa Mesa law firm Rutan & Tucker LLP.
Guilford has been named four times to the list of California’s 100 most influential attorneys done by legal newspaper the Daily Journal. He gained attention in the late 1990s for handling a slander suit against Dr. Laura Schlessinger for Beach Access in South Coast Plaza.
Guilford, who also has represented former Angel Reggie Jackson, is set to work with Rutan partner Michael Rubin, who was lead counsel for the January injunction hearings.
Rubin, who has represented the city in a previous dispute with the team, remains Anaheim’s lead lawyer.
Moreno and the Angels have enlisted the Costa Mesa office and Los Angeles headquarters of Stephan, Oringher, Richman & Theodora to defend the name change.
Stephan, Oringher’s team also is working with Atlanta-based Powell Goldstein LLP, which acts as outside general counsel for the Angels.
Todd Theodora of Stephan, Oringher’s Costa Mesa office was lead lawyer for the team at the hearing for a temporary injunction in early January.
Partner George Stephan of the Los Angeles office made arguments in the hearing for a preliminary injunction a couple of weeks later.
“The city wanted to convince the court that the parties to that lease agreement never contemplated that the team could be renamed something other than Anaheim,” Brian Cave’s Eisenberg said. “The Angels’ strategy was to avoid the issue of intent and focus on the lease language itself.”
In court arguments, the team’s lawyers also pointed to the financial history of the team, saying it has been a perennial money loser.
They claimed Moreno’s strategy of kicking off extensive advertising campaigns outside of Orange County helped boost the team’s ticket sales last season, which in turn boosted the amount of revenue Anaheim could collect.
Legal fees could become a political hot potato for the city, especially if a trial win appears unlikely. Anaheim already has paid attorney fees of $200,000 to Rutan & Tucker. If the case goes to trial the city likely would have to shell out at least another $1 million in fees, observers said.
Anaheim spokesman John Nicoletti said a trial is worth it.
“We think the most compelling evidence hasn’t been seen yet,” he said.
The city plans to show evidence that Anaheim wasn’t allowed to introduce at the hearings, according to Nicoletti.
“We have declarations from people like the former president of Disney Sports Enterprises,” he said. “We think that would show the intent of both parties when they were negotiated the contract.”
The lease dates back to 1996 when Walt Disney Co. owned the Angels. Moreno bought the team from Disney in 2003.
Intent is a big part of the city’s argument.
“In California there’s the implied good faith and fair dealing covenant, which looks at the intent of both parties,” Nicoletti said. “We believe that the intent of both parties was for ‘Anaheim’ to be a prominent part of the franchise name.”
The good faith argument isn’t a silver bullet, according to Eisenberg.
“The implied covenant can’t give rise to a separate cause of action or claim,” Eisenberg said. “But it can help verbalize the city’s argument that the team has breached the understanding of the parties.”
Anaheim’s best hope could be a hollow victory,a big damage award from a jury but not a name change. A reversal of the name could come down to Judge Polos, who’s twice declined to do so.
“Anaheim definitely is in a hole when it comes to getting injunctive relief from the trial court,the trial judge has already looked at what were pretty close to their best arguments and rejected them,” Eisenberg said. “It does not mean the case is over, especially in terms of the city’s chances of getting damages.”
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Crane: joined Rutan in 1982 |
Corporate Lawyer Crane Takes Over Rutan
Longtime corporate practice partner Tom Crane has taken over as managing partner of Costa Mesa-based Rutan & Tucker LLP, Orange County’s largest law firm.
Crane replaces Jeffrey Oderman, who’ll continue his government practice at the firm.
The change dovetails with a push by Rutan to grow its corporate work. The firm is known for its large public law practice, representing a number of California cities.
“We need to continue our recent growth in the intellectual property area and in our corporate securities and mergers and acquisition areas,” Crane said. “They provide the backbone for other legal work in areas like real estate and litigation practice groups. And it will help with our big practice areas in labor and municipal law.”
The firm doesn’t plan to scale back government work as it looks to grow the corporate side, he said.
Rutan has come a long way since A.W. Rutan opened his law office in Santa Ana in 1906. Crane said he is astounded at the changes the firm and OC have seen in recent decades.
“I’m looking out at what used to be 30 miles of bean fields, and I have seen all this growth that we have participated in,” Crane said of the view from his South Coast Plaza-area office. “After more than a couple of decades with Rutan, I feel this firm has come of age.”
It remains to be seen whether the firm adds offices, according to Crane.
“We feel we’re a player to be reckoned with on the national stage and now we have to decide whether we want offices outside of California to prove it,” he said.
In 2003, Rutan opened its first office outside OC in San Jose.
Crane joined Rutan & Tucker in 1982, leaving a post he held at the Securities and Exchange Commission. Rutan counts 138 lawyers.
In other law firm news, San Francisco-based Morrison & Foerster LLP named Dean Zipser managing partner of its Irvine office. He replaces Tom Umberg, who had served as managing partner since 2003 and is taking his seat as a newly elected California State Assembly member for the 69th district that includes Santa Ana.
,Chris Cziborr
