ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ

When attorney John Hall made the trip to St. Louis late last month to join his Team Kroenke teammates in their request for summary judgment in the years-long civil suit stemming from the Rams relocation rip-job, Oakland was mentioned multiple times.

How, Hall seemed to wonder in St. Louis Circuit Court Judge Christopher McGraugh’s third-floor courtroom, could a judge from Missouri not agree with a court system in California that initially moved to shut down Oakland’s attempt at a Raiders-based relocation lawsuit because it did not think the league’s relocation guidelines could be treated as a contract that lets host cities sue.

The most interesting question raised during that hourslong hearing in August has been answered by Judge McGraugh, and definitively so. The contested California example Team Kroenke leaned on is still in the appeals process and far from final. Oh, and California is not Missouri.

Found in the 16-page decision filed by Judge McGraugh this week that denied each and every aspect of Team Kroenke’s request for summary judgment were two important legal opinions that should shoot a chill up NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s spine.

Team Kroenke — that is the lawyers representing the Rams owner, the league and its owners — failed to prove to Judge McGraugh that the relocation guidelines should not be viewed as an agreement that can produce a breach of contract claim if broken.

This will likely be hard news for the NFL to swallow, because the league likes to treat the relocation guidelines like Silly Putty, stretching and collapsing them to fit whatever description is best in that moment. We saw it play out in St. Louis. When dangling the threat of relocation above a host city, the NFL makes the relocation guidelines and their emphasis on good-faith negotiations with host cities seem as sacred as the Ten Commandments. Follow them, and your team will be saved.

But when the league decides to ignore those same guidelines to maximize profit or satisfy a certain owner, forget all of the mentions about good faith negotiations with host cities and a preference to keep teams where they are currently planted. Actually, forget the relocation guidelines altogether. They’re just something owners can consider. Ignore, even.

Between Goodell and former league executive Eric Grubman making the relocation guidelines out to be all important and Cowboys owner Jerry Jones admitting during a deposition with St. Louis lawyers that they meant nothing to him as he worked to steer the Rams to Los Angeles, this St. Louis relocation case should be mandatory reading for any future NFL city that finds itself facing relocation-themed threats for stadium improvements or anything else. The NFL does not believe it has to play by its own rules. Team Kroenke lawyers have made that crystal clear in court. The trend will continue unless someone stops it.

Fortunately the relocation guidelines seem pretty clear to Judge McGraugh, who is worried more about Missouri law than some undecided case in California.

“Defendants rely primarily on the unpublished, unbinding opinion of a California court in arguing that the Relocation Policy is not a contract under Missouri law, because it does not contain any ‘sufficiently definite promises,’ writes Judge McGraugh in his summary judgment decision. “A review of the document at issue indicates that it does, in fact, contain sufficiently definite promises. The Relocation Policy states in pertinent part that each NFL club’s ‘primary obligation … is to advance the interest of the league in its home territory.’ The Relocation Policy further provides that ‘clubs are obligated to work diligently and in good faith to obtain and to maintain suitable stadium facilities in their home territories, and to operate in a manner that maximizes fan support in their home community.’ The term ‘obligation’ ordinarily means a legal duty.�

Team Kroenke also failed to prove that the St. Louis region should not be viewed as a third-party beneficiary to the relocation guidelines. You might be wondering who the heck else would be a third-party beneficiary to the relocation guidelines if not host cities, but it really was Team Kroenke’s stance that an internal league document could not possibly apply to a city. Wrong, says Judge McGraugh.

“The Relocation Policy clearly expresses an intent to benefit ‘home territories,’ an identifiable class of which Plaintiffs are members,� writes Judge McGraugh, as he spends the better part of five pages of his decision listing specific examples from the relocation guidelines that formed his conclusion.

Judge McGraugh’s smacking down of Team Kroenke’s request for summary judgment was predictable and it is nothing scorned St. Louis Rams fans should throw a parade about. Requests for summary judgments are made in most civil cases. They are usually rejected. What is noteworthy, though, is how the path now narrows. Team Kroenke can settle, or tell its side of the Rams relocation rip-job to a jury in January. The trial will happen right here in St. Louis, because Team Kroenke’s attempt to change venues whiffed, too. None of the claims made against the Rams and the NFL – breach of contract, unjust enrichment, fraudulent misrepresentation and tortious interference with business expectancy – have been scratched from the lawsuit. A pursuit of 10-figure punitive damages has been mentioned in court. Team STL has its story, and it is one of a league that lied time and time and time again.

What about Oakland?

Perhaps that’s the wrong question.

Maybe the lawyers working on appeals for that city should be asking, what about St. Louis?