Tuesday, March 30, 2004
Trustee files suit to bench lawyers in NFL legal battle
By Cindi Andrews
The Cincinnati Enquirer
An Anderson Township trustee has suited up for the legal battle between Hamilton County and the Cincinnati Bengals and the National Football League.
Russ Jackson filed a taxpayer lawsuit in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court on Monday seeking to prevent the county commissioners from hiring attorneys Stanley Chesley and Robert Furnier to sue the team and the National Football League.
Chesley and Furnier are being hired on a contingency basis, meaning they get a percentage of any award if they win the case. That's not permitted under Ohio law, the new court action contends; the fee must be fixed.
Jackson filed the suit as an individual after the county prosecutor's office declined to do so.
"It's all designed to prevent the county's case from advancing to a discussion of the merits of the case," Commissioner Todd Portune said of the new action.
Portune and Commissioner Phil Heimlich voted 2-0 earlier this month to enlist Chesley's and Furnier's help in joining a federal antitrust lawsuit by Groesbeck resident Carrie Davis. That suit - permitted by U.S. District Judge Arthur Spiegel to move forward - alleges the Bengals and the NFL used their power as a monopoly to force the county to build a new football stadium in the 1990s. It seeks up to $600 million in damages.
Paul Brown Stadium opened in 2000 at a cost of $451 million, with $24.5 million in seat license fees the Bengals' only financial contribution. Hamilton County voters approved a half-cent sales tax increase in 1996 to pay for Paul Brown and the Reds' Great American Ball Park.
Jackson's suit contends the county has already signed a contract with the lawyers, but that's not true, Chesley said Monday. Contrary to another claim in the suit, he said, the proposed contract would pay him only an hourly fee if the county later decided to drop the suit.
Jackson, a longtime township trustee, lost a five-way race early this month for the GOP nomination to challenge Portune, a Democrat.
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E-mail candrews@enquirer.com
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