Hank Haney Made Some Controversial Comments, Sues PGA Tour

[iacas]

15 minutes ago, DeadMan said:

In general, it seems like a big stretch to hold a third-party accountable for the actions of someone else. It's also going to be hard to prove.

Granted, I haven't read the lawsuit, so I could be wrong about this. 

I asked you because as a lawyer I thought you might have some interesting angle.

Oh well. 😄 😄 😄 

[DaveP043]

Seeing as how this is was PGA Tour Radio, It seems logical that the PGA Tour has some significant rights as far as approval and continuing employment of on-air personalities.  Much as the Masters has to approve announcers that CBS assigns at their tournament, as the NFL has approval over who Fox uses for NFL games.  

 

[DeadMan]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

I asked you because as a lawyer I thought you might have some interesting angle.

Oh well. 😄 😄 😄 

It's the holidays. I'm a federal government worker. I'm half assing things right now 🙂

[boogielicious]

17 hours ago, DeadMan said:

It's the holidays. I'm a federal government worker. I'm half assing things right now 🙂

We expect a full legal analysis after the new year! 

[DaveP043]

17 hours ago, DeadMan said:

It's the holidays. I'm a federal government worker. I'm half assing things right now 🙂

Well if you're half-assing things at work, you have more than enough time to help us to understand all the legal aspects of this!  

[iacas]

16 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

Well if you're half-assing things at work, you have more than enough time to help us to understand all the legal aspects of this!  

Right. It was on the PGA Tour station on Sirius, wasn't it? So it's not really a third-party…?

[DeadMan]

You all are a pretty demanding lot! 

I read through the complaint, and Haney is going to have a lot of trouble proving his allegations. Among them:

• The PGA Tour pressuring small bookshops (or maybe golf stores, hard to tell) not to sell Haney's book. 
• The PGA Tour pressuring the Golf Channel to cancel Haney's show.
• The PGA Tour pressuring Avis (is he really talking about the rental car company?) to cancel Haney's sponsorship.
• The PGA Tour has a motive to ingratiate itself with the LPGA Tour so it can monopolize all professional golf. I don't even know where to start with that one.
• He says that there was going to be no punishment from Sirius until the PGA Tour stepped in. There is nothing backing that up except an e-mail from a Program Director the day Haney made the comments. And it doesn't back up that story at all - it's just instructions on how other hosts should handle the controversy. 

It's possible that Haney will find evidence for all this stuff in discovery, but it's pretty half-baked right now. 

Beyond that, making a case for tortuous interference with contract or business relations is tough. He's probably going to have to show that Sirius breached the contract he had with Sirius. That contract gives Sirius the right to terminate the contract, without reason, with 30 days written notice. It's pretty unlikely that Sirius breached the contract given its right to terminate without cause. On a quick research of Florida law (the law I'm guessing will apply), a contract that is terminable at-will does not allow someone to sue for tortuous interference with contract. Haney's contract appears to be terminable at-will, so he has to overcome that hurdle.

He's also going to have to prove that the PGA Tour intentionally and unjustifiably interfered here. That's going to be tough. The PGA Tour will be able to argue that its actions were not unjustified, given that it could lose business by being associated with Haney. Finally, he's going to have to show that the PGA Tour caused Sirius to end the contract. Given the response and outrage from his comments, it's going to be difficult to prove that the PGA Tour was the cause here. In other words, but-for the PGA Tour's actions, would Sirius have ended Haney's contract? 

[Groucho Valentine]

its an odd lawsuit. But i dont know enough about federal standing statues to say if a circut judge will throw it out or not. Usually the complainant has to demonstrate that he has sustained clear and undeibable injury and must trace it back to the defendant actions. Being that theres a third party here i dont know how Haney has any legal redress. Which is a component of standing in most areas of law. Its a weird one. 

[iacas]

15 minutes ago, DeadMan said:

It's possible that Haney will find evidence for all this stuff in discovery, but it's pretty half-baked right now.

Are they just hoping to find it all in discovery?

[DeadMan]

1 minute ago, iacas said:

Are they just hoping to find it all in discovery?

It seems like it. It reads like a lot of conjecture right now - there's very little substantive evidence backing it up. Normally, that's fine for this stage of a lawsuit, but given what Haney will have to show to prove his claims, it's pretty flimsy. He doesn't have any actual evidence showing that the PGA Tour told Sirius to fire him. He doesn't have any evidence showing that the PGA Tour even interacted with Sirius, period. 

 

16 minutes ago, DeadMan said:

You all are a pretty demanding lot! 

I read through the complaint, and Haney is going to have a lot of trouble proving his allegations. Among them:

• The PGA Tour pressuring small bookshops (or maybe golf stores, hard to tell) not to sell Haney's book. 
• The PGA Tour pressuring the Golf Channel to cancel Haney's show.
• The PGA Tour pressuring Avis (is he really talking about the rental car company?) to cancel Haney's sponsorship.
• The PGA Tour has a motive to ingratiate itself with the LPGA Tour so it can monopolize all professional golf. I don't even know where to start with that one.
• He says that there was going to be no punishment from Sirius until the PGA Tour stepped in. There is nothing backing that up except an e-mail from a Program Director the day Haney made the comments. And it doesn't back up that story at all - it's just instructions on how other hosts should handle the controversy. 

It's possible that Haney will find evidence for all this stuff in discovery, but it's pretty half-baked right now. 

Beyond that, making a case for tortuous interference with contract or business relations is tough. He's probably going to have to show that Sirius breached the contract he had with Sirius. That contract gives Sirius the right to terminate the contract, without reason, with 30 days written notice. It's pretty unlikely that Sirius breached the contract given its right to terminate without cause. On a quick research of Florida law (the law I'm guessing will apply), a contract that is terminable at-will does not allow someone to sue for tortuous interference with contract. Haney's contract appears to be terminable at-will, so he has to overcome that hurdle.

He's also going to have to prove that the PGA Tour intentionally and unjustifiably interfered here. That's going to be tough. The PGA Tour will be able to argue that its actions were not unjustified, given that it could lose business by being associated with Haney. Finally, he's going to have to show that the PGA Tour caused Sirius to end the contract. Given the response and outrage from his comments, it's going to be difficult to prove that the PGA Tour was the cause here. In other words, but-for the PGA Tour's actions, would Sirius have ended Haney's contract? 

By the way, @iacas, @DaveP043, and @boogielicious, this will be $500. Cash or check is fine. 😛

[DaveP043]

Just now, DeadMan said:

By the way, @iacas, @DaveP043, and @boogielicious, this will be $500. Cash or check is fine. 😛

Its in the mail.  I sure hope it doesn't get lost in the Christmas rush!  If it does, though, I'll be happy to buy you a beer next time you're near DC.

[boogielicious]

1 minute ago, DeadMan said:

It seems like it. It reads like a lot of conjecture right now - there's very little substantive evidence backing it up. Normally, that's fine for this stage of a lawsuit, but given what Haney will have to show to prove his claims, it's pretty flimsy. He doesn't have any actual evidence showing that the PGA Tour told Sirius to fire him. He doesn't have any evidence showing that the PGA Tour even interacted with Sirius, period. 

 

By the way, @iacas, @DaveP043, and @boogielicious, this will be $500. Cash or check is fine. 😛

You bill out pretty cheap. My wife bills out for a bit more in the private sector!

[iacas]

12 minutes ago, DeadMan said:

By the way, @iacas, @DaveP043, and @boogielicious, this will be $500. Cash or check is fine. 😛

@DaveP043 included my share in his check. He owes me for letting the Caps beat the Pens, finally, in the playoffs a few years ago.

[Buckeyebowman]

On 12/19/2019 at 3:37 PM, DaveP043 said:

Seeing as how this is was PGA Tour Radio, It seems logical that the PGA Tour has some significant rights as far as approval and continuing employment of on-air personalities.  Much as the Masters has to approve announcers that CBS assigns at their tournament, as the NFL has approval over who Fox uses for NFL games.  

 

Not exactly the same thing, but the two radio announcers who broadcast the Cleveland Indians games are not employees of the radio station, or the radio network. They are employees of the Cleveland Indians. 

On 12/20/2019 at 11:37 AM, iacas said:

@DaveP043 included my share in his check. He owes me for letting the Caps beat the Pens, finally, in the playoffs a few years ago.

Damned Ovechkin!

[mighty]

On 5/30/2019 at 10:43 AM, DeadMan said:

If you think that, you're really not making an effort to get into the LPGA at all. There are tons of great personalities on the LPGA. The Korda sisters are great. Danielle Kang. Michelle Wie, obviously. It's a little more corporate than the days of Julie Inkster, I suppose, but the personalities are definitely there. Some of the foreign players don't seem to have as much personality, but the language barrier is definitely an issue there.

They definitely don't hit the ball like the men do, but they're still hitting the ball a long way. According to their stats, the median LPGA player is hitting the ball ~260 off the tee. The top couple of players are over 280. That's not PGA Tour long, but it's longer than most average men.

I really enjoy the LPGA. It's a very different game than the bomb and gouge the men play, but it's entertaining. And you have many different styles win - you have bombers like Lexi and the Korda sisters, but you also have Lydia Ko winning with finesse. 

Say that you don't really care to watch the LPGA, I don't have a problem with that. But to say it's devoid of personalities and the women don't hit it far enough is really just showing that you aren't really paying attention to it.

I personally was disgusted with Haney's comments. Beyond the racism there, he's a golf media personality. His job is to know stuff like this! The venue for the women's US Open is a cool Raynor course. The LPGA has some great golf, and great, fun golfers. It's stunning ignorance from the guy who's job it is to know this stuff. If I were getting paid to talk for hours on the radio, I would at least put a little research into what I'm talking about.

The average LPGA drive is like 240 yards

[iacas]

18 minutes ago, mighty said:

The average LPGA drive is like 240 yards

The next-to-last ranked player for 2019's driving distance was over 240 yards.

Average Driving Distance | LPGA | Ladies Professional Golf Association

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[leftybutnotPM]

On 1/11/2020 at 2:43 AM, mighty said:

The average LPGA drive is like 240 yards

Why would you post something that is not even close to being true?

You may as well say " The average PGATour pro has 36 putts per round".

You can have an opinion about the personalities of players, but to just make up a "statistic" that is generally between 10 and  20% out  is ridiculous.

Edited January 14, 2020 by leftybutnotPM

[boogielicious]

12 hours ago, leftybutnotPM said:

Why would you post something that is not even close to being true?

You may as well say " The average PGATour pro has 36 putts per round".

You can have an opinion about the personalities of players, but to just make up a "statistic" that is generally between 10 and  20% out  is ridiculous.

Agree, especially when you can look up the factual number very quickly.