By Dr. Robert J. Romano, JD, LLM, St. John’s University, Senior Writer
Within a week’s time, the District of Columbia, through its Attorney General, Karl A. Racine, filed two separate lawsuits in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia involving the National Football League’s Washington Commanders.
In the first action, filed on November 10, 2022, the Attorney General alleges that the Commanders and its owner Daniel Snyder, together with the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell, are accountable for creating and allowing a toxic and hostile work environment to permeate throughout the team’s front office, while simultaneously providing misleading statements and failing to disclose material information related to the Wilkinson Investigation, all of which are violations of the District’s Consumer Protection Procedures Act (CPPA).[1] In the second lawsuit, filed on November 17, 2022, the District of Columbia’s Attorney General summed up in his one count complaint how the Washington Commanders again violated the CPPA, this time by intentionally misrepresenting various conditions concerning its season ticket program that were available to fans and perspective buyers who live or have lived within the District of Columbia.[2]
Regarding the November 10, 2022 lawsuit, the District of Columbia’s Attorney General claims that from around the time that Dan Snyder became the owner of the Washington D.C. franchise, he has knowingly and repeatedly concealed allegations of sexual harassment and abuse of team employees from the Commanders’ ticket and merchandise purchasing fanbase. In addition, since the summer of 2020, when the NFL and Dan Snyder agreed to hire Beth Wilkinson to oversee an internal investigation into the franchise regarding these issues (Wilkinson Investigation), the Attorney General contends that the two entities conspired to deceive the Washington D.C. fans when they jointly and publicly stated, “that this dysfunctional and misogynistic conduct was limited and that they (the Commanders organization) were fully cooperating with an independent investigation.”[3] These statements, according to the lawsuit, distorted the truth and misled consumers, translating into increased ticket and merchandise sales, which is a ‘no-no’ when it comes to the D.C.’s consumer protection laws.
“For years the team and its owner have caused very real and very serious harm and then lied to dodge accountability, to continue making profits,” A.G. Karl Racine stated. “So far, they seem to have gotten away with it, but that stops today.”[4] Both the NFL and the Washington organization could potentially be held liable to pay financial penalties of up to $5,000 for each time they are found to have lied or mispresented their efforts to prevent and investigate sexual harassment or abuse within the organization.[5]
Moreover, the second lawsuit filed by the District of Columbia on November 17, 2022, involves the Washington Commanders’ front office failing to return refundable deposits to season ticket holders who live or at one time lived within the District of Columbia. The complaint outlines how the Commanders “deceptively” held onto deposits beyond the 30-day holding period as agreed to per the season-ticket contracts, while at the same time imposing burdensome conditions that needed to be followed before receiving the money back from the organization. Again, the Attorney General’s position is that the team’s failure to return these deposits violated the CPPA since the franchise “prioritized its own revenues over fairness and deceived District consumers by wrongly withholding their security deposits that should have been automatically repaid under consumers’ contracts, and improperly using those deposits for the Team’s own purposes.”[6]
However, the D.C. Attorney General’s office did comment that the Commanders “have returned some of the money to ticket holders but, as of March 2022, they still held nearly $200,000 in unreturned security deposits paid by District consumers. They have also forfeited thousands of dollars from District consumers’ security deposits and converted that money into revenue for the team, to use for its own purposes.”[7]
In a response to this second lawsuit, the Washington organization’s front office stated that it has not accepted security deposits for luxury suites in over ten years, nor has it accepted them for premium tickets for over twenty years. The Washington Commanders also claim that it began returning any and all monies associated with season-ticket deposits in 2014.[8] This may be true, and the franchise may have ‘begun’ returning the deposit money in 2014, but it is now 2022, isn’t it time to make certain that ‘all’ of the deposit money is returned?
[1] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23296955-2022-11-10-commanders-complaint
[2] https://oag.dc.gov/sites/default/files/2022-11/DC-v.-Commanders-Complaint-.pdf
[3] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23296955-2022-11-10-commanders-complaint
[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/10/sports/football/dan-snyder-commanders-civil-suit.html
[5] Id.
[6] https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/11/17/dc-attorney-general-washington-commanders/
[7] Id.
[8] Id.
