JEFFERSON CITY • A Missouri appeals court Tuesday blocked another bid by Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke and the National Football League to force an ongoing lawsuit over the 2016 relocation of the team into arbitration.
In a , a three judge panel of the Missouri Appeals Court, Eastern District, found that the Rams can’t force a lawsuit to be hammered out behind closed doors based on the language of the team’s 1995 lease agreement.
The court said rules governing the arbitration issue weren’t in place until eight years after the 1995 contract was put in place.
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“Simply stated, the change in the … rules in 2003 cannot and does not alter the parties’ contractual intent in 1995. The … rules are not a time machine,†the court noted.
The case, filed 15 months after the January 2016 relocation vote by NFL owners, pits the city of St. Louis, St. Louis County and the Regional Convention and ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ Complex Authority against the Rams, the NFL and the 31 other NFL teams and their owners.
The case alleges breach of contract, fraud, illegal enrichment and interference in business by the Rams and the NFL, causing significant public financial loss.
A successful outcome for St. Louis won’t bring the Rams back from California, but it could cost the Rams, the NFL and NFL teams millions of dollars — maybe hundreds of millions.
The latest ruling is among a handful of pretrial decisions that have largely gone against Kroenke and the NFL.
If the case reaches trial, Kroenke, team executive Kevin Demoff and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell could be put on the witness stand.
The relocation vote by the NFL owners came after a public task force to keep the Rams in St. Louis with a new riverfront stadium on the failed effort.
