Posted on 05/23/2014 12:59:31 PM PDT by Laissez-faire capitalist
Let's say tha someone owned a chain of hotels (be they whatever number of stars), and this individual was caught on tape uttering a string of racial expletives.
Let's say furthermore that this individual had signed a contract that if they were to ever bring harm to the company or impugn its name, that within the contract clause for owners this individual could be forced to sell.
That I could see and understand.
But let's say that this individual sold his string of fancy hotels, and later wanted to rent a room in a hotel that was far away from any of the hotels that he ever owned, and was a hotel (albeit owned by another person) but one that was within the same chain that he previously owned.
How could they refuse him?
The law states that as long as a room is available that they must rent him a room.
I could see how certain exceptions could be made, but racism is not one of them.
So, if Sterling wanted to attend a Spurs game (Clippers not playing), how could he be refused? I could see him being barred from a Clippers game, but not another.
Point is, if he owned a string of McDonald's fast-food restaurants (for example) he could be forced to sell his McDonald's franchises, maybe forced to stay out of one of his previous restaurants...
But not from a McDonald's that he never owned or from one that was not in Los Angeles. How can you bar him from going in and buying a Big Mac in San Antonio?
You cannot make a contract that says that if you bring ill-repute on the logo or name, that you must bathe in boiling water, etc.
Point is, there are cases where a judge could say that the very words within the contract clause weren't valid the moment the contract was signed.
He can never go to ANY NBA game? ANY? I don't think that would be valid from the get-go. On signing something like this, a person could posibly laugh the moment they were signing it, might very well not be enforceable.
I could see him being forced to sell his team, given the contract he signed.
I could see him not being able to go to a game where the Clippers were playing.
But not being able to go to a game where the Clippers weren’t playing? How is that enforceable?
What next, “no soup for you?” No room for you? No Big Mac for you?
Holmes’ “Reasonable Man”
http://www2.law.columbia.edu/faculty_franke/Torts/Reasonable%20Woman.htm
The Reasonable Person
http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-94-007-4605-3_7#page-1
Is the society which drafts such “laws” itself being reasonable?
Apparently he is going to sell the team. He may have received legal advice to the effect he had no real defense to the league action.
I agree, he probably had no recourse pertaining to selling the team.
1.) Selling the team, and then attending Clippers games - I could see how he could be kept from attending said games.
2.) Selling the team while attending no Clippers games: I can’t see how that is enforceable, even if it were within a clause.
How could it be “reasonable” to put #2 within the contract?
Your second link is run by idiots.
$30 for a chapter and $100 for the ebook?
They’d make more money if they lowered their price.
We reserve the right to refuse service. People get banned frequently, usually from just one or two teams because they’re not high enough profile for it to be on the league level. But Sterling is very high profile. You don’t have to rent a room to somebody that your business has decided isn’t welcome (so long as it’s not for reasons that violate a discrimination law), and the same goes for seats at a game.
Used to be a pound of flesh they wanted. Now it is a pound-and-a-half. Liberals reign :-(
The difference here is that it is a contract issue between a corporation and an individual. Any other analogies don’t apply.
Great question. Is it a public accomodation? But then again, he’s not a member of a protected class.
Isn’t an NBA game a little different than a private business, though...especially if public money helped build the arena?
If he wants to buy a ticket, isn’t his money as good as anyone else’s. Yes, some people do get banned from arenas...but it due to bad behavior in the actual arena. This is different.
I’d love for Sterling to push the issue.
The team is leasing the building during the game and can set attendance limits accordingly. The same laws that let them set ticket prices let them ban people. It’s their event and for management purposes it’s their venue during the event.
Ok...but how much power does that lease give them? They certainly can’t violate the civil rights act, and ban blacks from attendance.
“discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin”
But how about women? Could the NBA ban women from a game? Are they any more or less protected than Sterling?
And what is Sterling’s real misdeed? What action on his part got him banned from the arena? Being recorded (most likely illegally)? Being disliked? He sure hasn’t done anything in the arena, at the game, that caused a disturbance.
Lets take it a step further. Maybe the Clippers will have a “ban global warming deniers night”. How would that be any different than banning Sterling?
Or even further. Maybe the NBA will ban President Bush - not because he got drunk and spilled beer on people in the stands...but because some owner thinks he’s a ‘war criminal’.
I think its a slippery slope.
In the original post you replied I said the limit was at violating discrimination laws.
Sterling’s real misdeed is generating a lot of bad press, much of which dredged up his sullied past that involves a lot of racial stuff some of which he’s even been taken to court over (and the NBA knew about, but since it didn’t hit the press hard they opted to ignore). What got him banned from the arena is that the NBA no longer wants to be associated with him.
Global warming deniers since they’re a political persuasion might be a protected class. Former unpopular presidents are not.
It’s not a slippery slope at all. Teams have been banning people from the stands as long as there have been stands. Sterling’s is a little grandiose since it’s a whole league ban, but it’s really not that unusual, just look at the Vegas Black Book.
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