The latest on ACC vs. Clemson lawsuit over grant of rights in Charlotte
A North Carolina judge on Tuesday morning promised to issue rulings on two motions in the ACC vs. Clemson case playing out in Charlotte before those two parties face each other again next week in South Carolina in a similar case.
The pending decisions by North Carolina Business Court chief judge Louis A. Bledsoe III will resemble another step in the dueling lawsuits and could provide some clarity on where they will ultimately be heard, a key first step in the legal process.
After hearing roughly an hour of arguments from both sides on Tuesday morning, Bledsoe committed to issuing rulings on Clemson’s motion to dismiss the ACC’s lawsuit and Clemson’s motion to stay the ACC’s lawsuit by late next week.
Clemson sued the ACC in Pickens County, South Carolina (where it’s located), on March 19, challenging the conference’s “grant of rights” and large exit fee required of any school hoping to leave the ACC for another conference (something the Tigers are heavily considering amid realignment) in the case Clemson vs. ACC.
The ACC, in turn, counter-sued Clemson in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina (where its Charlotte headquarters are located) and asked a court to declare its grant of rights and exit fee were “valid and enforceable” while seeking damages from Clemson for breaching that GOR in the case ACC vs. Clemson.
There’s currently a July 12 hearing set at the Pickens County Courthouse on the ACC’s motions to dismiss and stay that case (the same motions Clemson made for the ACC’s suit in which it’s the defendant).
Bledsoe’s rulings on the two motions detailed at Tuesday’s hearings could be big news for the process heading into that hearing.
If he denies Clemson’s motions to dismiss and/or stay the proceedings in Charlotte, it would be a “win” for the ACC, which has argued from the start that North Carolina is the proper venue for hearing the case.
If Bledsoe rules in favor of Clemson, though, it would resemble a more unexpected “win” for the university, which has argued that South Carolina is the proper venue for the case since Clemson filed its lawsuit first and has sovereign immunity and cannot be sued outside its own state.
Legal experts polled by The State and other media outlets have found more credibility in the ACC’s argument, and the general sense is that the dueling lawsuits between the ACC and Clemson will eventually be heard (and perhaps consolidated into one case) in Charlotte. Bledsoe’s pending rulings will be a test of that theory.
Clemson athletic director Graham Neff was present for the hearing Tuesday at the Mecklenburg County Courthouse along with four university lawyers. The ACC brought a number of lawyers, but commissioner Jim Phillips was not in attendance for the hearing/case management conference held in uptown Charlotte.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
