St. Louis City Circuit Judge Christopher McGraugh is set to decide whether to grant a motion for summary judgment requested by the National Football League (NFL) in litigation alleging it failed to comply with relocation rules when the Rams fled to Los Angeles.
As previously reported, the St. Louis Regional Convention and Sports Complex Authority, the City of St. Louis, and the County of St. Louis sued the Rams and Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke for leaving St. Louis city and county officials on the hook for a new stadium that was never built.
“I think St. Louis wants it known that the NFL did St. Louis wrong because this is a community with a lot of pride,” said Randy Karraker, 101 ESPN Radio morning host.
“Not just the sports fans but the city, in general, was denigrated when the Rams left. And, as it turns out, Kevin Demoff was sending crime statistics, murder rates and downgraded credit ratings to show what a bad area St. Louis is and I think St. Louis people and attorneys involved with the lawsuit just want to show that we are not what the NFL and the Rams portray us to be."
Demoff is chief operating officer of the Rams. Karraker, who attended the hearing this week, said NFL lawyers argued for summary judgment with the claim that there was no fraud.
“The League is saying that the claim that the NFL’s relocation policy is a contract is not valid and that it is essentially a guideline or suggestion but not a promise or an obligation on the part of the League,” he said.
St. Louis attorneys countered that the NFL took the relocation policy to the next level when it worked with St. Louis, visited St. Louis, and gave tips to St. Louis on how to help build a stadium and to advance the cause for a new stadium.
“They argued that, in encouraging St. Louis to keep moving forward with their stadium plans and then at the last minute changing the rules, it rose to the level of a fraudulent act on the part of the League,” Karraker told the St. Louis Record.
McGraugh took the motion for summary judgment under advisement on Aug. 25. The next hearing is on Aug. 30 to discuss potentially changing the venue if there is a trial in January 2022, but Karraker said the home field advantage for St. Louis plaintiffs won’t change even if the trial is relocated.
“It won’t be assigned very far away,” Karraker said. “It has to be a neighboring county to St. Louis like Jefferson County or St. Charles County. It won’t be moved across the state to Jackson County and so many people are aware of the situation anyway. They'll be able to find a jury but I don't think they will be able to find an awful lot of people who aren’t aware of what the NFL and the Rams did to St. Louis.”