A federal judge from the Middle District of North Carolina has waded into a legal dispute between a jilted NFL agent and the agent his former client signed with, delivering a mixed verdict on the defendant’s motion to dismiss.
This lawsuit arises from the representation of and contract negotiation for Robert Quinn, the fourteenth overall pick in the 2011 NFL Draft.
Carl E. Carey Jr., Ph.D., was a certified National Football League Players Association contract advisor. Carey was the president of Champion Pro Consulting Group, Inc., his agency.
The corporate defendant was Impact Sports Football, LLC. The individual defendants were Tony Fleming, a player-agent representative; Mitchell Frankel, a player-agent representative as well as an active officer and registered agent for Impact with direct and supervisory authority over Fleming; Christina White, Quinn’s business manager; and Marvin Austin, who received monetary compensation for recruiting potential clients.
A mutual friend introduced Carey to Quinn in November 2010. Soon after, Quinn called Carey, and they allegedly had an introductory conversation, which was the only contact between Carey and Quinn until December 4, 2010.
On or about December 4, 2010, Carey allegedly met with Quinn and several members of his family in North Carolina, during which Quinn and his father signed a Standard Representation Agreement (SRA) with Carey. The NFLPA requires the use of an SRA to memorialize the agreement between a player and player-agent representative for services to be provided in exchange for a commission on a player’s contract. Based on this SRA, Carey was to receive a three percent commission on the value of Quinn’s future contract.
Carey and Quinn also allegedly agreed to a separate contract for personal expenses, where Carey would provide Quinn with money for personal expenses on the condition that Quinn repay the money if he terminated Carey within two years of the agreement. If Quinn terminated the contract, the money he owed would revert to a loan, according to the complaint.
In the spring of 2011, NFL team owners and the NFLPA could not agree on a new collective bargaining agreement. NFL players were locked out from March 11 to July 25, 2011. As a result of the lockout, the NFLPA decertified as a union, meaning it did not serve as a governing body over player representatives.
Without the NFLPA’s agent regulation rules in place, a number of agents began to contact and communicate with players under existing contracts with other agents, according to the complaint.
In June 2011, Carey allegedly started receiving text messages from Quinn demanding more marketing contracts. Quinn and defendant White requested an emergency meeting with Carey in Chapel Hill to address Quinn’s demands. Other members of Quinn’s family also attended the meeting. At the meeting, White was allegedly introduced as Quinn’s business manager and girlfriend. Quinn asked Carey to cut his commission from three percent of Quinn’s professional contract to one and one-half percent. Carey would later claim that defendant Fleming and White “knew each other and had an agreed upon plan and scheme to terminate the relationship between Carey and Quinn.”
Later that summer, a trainer from the St. Louis Rams, who had drafted Quinn that spring, contacted Carey about Quinn. Carey informed his client, who then terminated their relationship.
Carey alleged that the defendants were “operating under a plan and scheme to terminate Carey immediately upon the beginning of any contact with the St. Louis Rams related to contract negotiations.” Under this plan and scheme, Quinn was to remain under contract with Carey for as long as possible to extract as much money and as many services from Carey as possible before hiring the defendants as his agents.
“Fleming discussed contract terms with the St. Louis Rams within five days of Carey receiving Quinn’s fax terminating their SRA. On July 30, 2011, Quinn signed a four-year contract worth a maximum of $9.4 million, including a $5.3 million signing bonus.”
The plaintiff maintained that “before 2011, players rarely terminated representatives after the draft, but before negotiating with an NFL team. While the NFLPA was decertified, however, several former UNC football players, including Quinn and Austin, did so.”
Carey sued the defendants under the following legal theories: “(1) unfair methods of competition, (2) tortious interference with contract, (3) slander per se, and (4) civil conspiracy. The amended complaint also includes a fifth claim for unjust enrichment against the defendants Impact, Frankel, and Fleming. The defendants moved to dismiss each count on various grounds, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6).
The court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss as it related to the slander per se, tortious interference, and unjust enrichment claims. The motion was denied as to the unfair methods of competition and civil conspiracy claims.
The slander per se claim was dismissed because the plaintiffs did not allege “an actionable defamatory statement. There are ‘constitutional limits on the type of speech’ subject to a defamation action.’ Daniels v. Metro Magazine Holding Co., 179 N.C. App. 533, 539, 634 S.E.2d 586, 590 (2006) (quoting Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co., 497 U.S. 1, 16, 110 S. Ct. 2695, 111 L. Ed. 2d 1 (1990)).”
The plaintiffs had relied on three allegedly defamatory statements: (1) that Carey “should have been getting endorsement deals for Quinn”; (2) that the defendants Impact, Fleming, and Frankel “could market Quinn better than Carey”; and (3) that Carey was “at fault for Quinn not being selected higher in the 2011 NFL Draft.” The judge noted that “although these statements touch Carey in his special trade or occupation as a player representative, they are not actionable because the statements are personal opinions that are ‘incapable of being actually or factually proven or disproven.” Cf. Craven v. Cope, 188 N.C. App. 814, 818, 656 S.E.2d 729, 733 (2008)
The court next considered the defendants’ motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ claim alleging that they tortiously interfered with the SRA between Quinn and Carey. The court held for the defendants, noting that “the alleged interference was justified or privileged.”
The final victory for the defendants involved the claim for unjust enrichment.
“To state a claim for unjust enrichment, a plaintiff must allege that he conferred a benefit on the other party,” wrote the court. “The benefit must not have been conferred officiously, that is it must not be conferred by an interference in the affairs of the other party in a manner that is not justified in the circumstances. The benefit must not be gratuitous and it must be measurable. Booe v. Shadrick, 322 N.C. 567, 570, 369 S.E.2d 554, 556 (1988).
“The plaintiffs based their claim for unjust enrichment on the services Carey provided to Quinn in preparing him for the NFL Draft and contract negotiations.” However, the court found that the plaintiffs “are collaterally estopped from raising their unjust enrichment claim. … Carey has already recovered in quantum meruit for the reasonable value of his services through the NFLPA arbitration process.”
The court, however, denied the motion to dismiss as to the unfair methods of competition claim, which involved the plaintiff’s allegations, that the defendants “maliciously planned to extract as much money and services from the plaintiffs before terminating his SRA with the plaintiffs when NFL contract negotiations began. … This court finds that the plaintiffs have alleged at least a plausible claim for unfair or deceptive trade practices.”
It also agreed with the plaintiffs of the civil conspiracy claim. “Under North Carolina law, a plaintiff must allege ‘a conspiracy, wrongful acts done by certain of the alleged conspirators, and injury.’ Henry v. Deen, 310 N.C. 75, 87, 310 S.E.2d 326, 334 (1984). Because the unfair methods of competition claim survives and the amended complaint alleges that the defendants had an agreement to commit the acts underlying those claims, the amended complaint adequately states a claim for civil conspiracy.”
Champion Pro Consulting Group, INC., and Carl E. Carey, JR., Ph.D., v. Impact Sports Football, LLC, et al.; M.D.N.C.; 1:12CV27, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 141000; 9/30/13
Attorneys or Record: (for plaintiffs) Karen Mckeithen Schaede, Lead Attorney, W. Holmes Lilley , III, Karen Mckeithen Schaede, PLLC, Greensboro, NC; Kevin J. Dolley, Mark A. Koupal, Lead Attorneys, Law Office of Kevin J. Dolley, LLC, St. Louis, MN. (for defendants) Robert Flynn Orr, Lead Attorney, Andrew H. Erteschik, Poyner Spruill, LLP, Raleigh, NC.
