The Tennessee Titans are no longer a defendant in a lawsuit brought by a Las Vegas strip club employee, who was shot and paralyzed last year in an incident involving the Titans’ Adam “Pacman” Jones.
A Clark County (Nevada) District Court Judge agreed with team lawyers who argued that the Titans didn’t do business in Nevada and couldn’t be held responsible for Jones’ actions.
“What’s happened to Mr. (Tommy) Urbanski is incredibly unfortunate, and we haven’t lost sight of that,” the judge said. “This litigation, however, has nothing to do with the Tennessee Titans.”
The lawsuit, which was filed Oct. 19, sought unspecified damages from Jones, the NFL, the Titans and the owners of Harlem Knights, a Houston strip club that rented the Las Vegas club for the party the night of the shooting.
Urbanski’s attorney, Matthew Dushoff, had maintained that the Titans and the league had “created a monster” in failing to discipline Jones for several run-ins with police in other cities before the strip club shooting. He also argued that the league and team do enough commercial business in Nevada to be held accountable in that state’s courts.
However, the Titans lawyer Nathaniel Hannaford successfully argued that the team is a Delaware corporation that does business in Tennessee with no business ties, office, property, employees or phone number in Nevada.
Shortly after the decision by the court, The NFL, which is also a named defendant in the case, filed a similar motion to be removed. “Plaintiffs attempt to hold the NFL hostage in this case should prompt the same response,” wrote attorneys for the league.
