CLEVELAND — Lawyers for Haslam Sports Group and the city of Cleveland faced off in court Friday morning, during the first hearing in a battle over a state law designed to make it tougher for pro sports teams to pull up stakes.
The sparring went on for two-and-a-half hours, punctuated by questions from Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Lauren C. Moore.
The central issue was jurisdiction – whether this legal fight should play out in state or federal court. But attorneys for both sides also outlined their positions on the so-called Modell law, and whether it applies to a potential Browns’ move to neighboring Brook Park.
“The Browns need prompt clarity,” said Bradley Wilson, one of the team’s lawyers. “The Browns need to know that they’re going to be able to move to Brook Park, because there’s a lot of work going on to try to prepare the site for football.”
But litigation – over a statute that’s never been fully tested – is casting a cloud over the project, “complicating those efforts and putting that investment at risk,” he said.
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The law, Ohio Revised Code Section 9.67, applies to professional sports teams that play most of their games in publicly subsidized facilities.
It requires team owners looking to move to do one of two things: Negotiate an exit deal with their home city or give local investors a six-month window to buy the team.
The Ohio legislature passed the law in 1996, after former Browns owner Art Modell announced his plan to move the team to Baltimore. That decision spurred a public outcry, a legal fight and, eventually, a settlement that let Cleveland keep the Browns name and colors – and build a new lakefront stadium for a replacement NFL team.
“The Haslam family, the Browns’ current owners, are nothing like Art Modell,” Anitha Reddy, one of the team’s lawyers, said during Friday’s hearing.
Last fall, the Haslams decided to focus on moving the Browns to Brook Park in 2029, after the team’s lease ends at city-owned Huntington Bank Field on the Downtown lakefront.
Now, Haslam Sports Group is racing to lay the groundwork for a $2.4 billion enclosed suburban stadium, which would be owned by a public entity and paid for with a mix of public and private money.
Their plans also show roughly $1 billion in private development around the stadium, including apartments, hotels, retail, restaurants and about 14,000 parking spaces.
In October, the Browns filed a lawsuit in federal court to challenge the Modell law, after Cleveland officials talked about enforcing it.
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In court filings, the team argues that the law is unconstitutional and vague. Haslam Sports Group’s lawyers also say the law doesn’t apply to a situation where a team is moving just outside the city, after a lease ends.
Cleveland filed its own lawsuit in January in state court.
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City officials and the Ohio attorney general’s office say that’s where the case should stay, since it involves unsettled questions about a state law.
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“It’s clear the Browns don’t want to be here,” Justin Herdman, a lawyer representing the city of Cleveland, said during the hearing. “It’s clear that this Ohio professional football team does not want to be in an Ohio court having an Ohio judge decide issues of Ohio law.
“That is particularly galling, given the fact that they are asking the Ohio legislature for $600 million,” he added, referring to a funding request that the General Assembly and Gov. Mike DeWine are considering as part of the next state budget, which must be voted on and signed by the end of this month.
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Lawyers for the Browns are asking Moore to pause or dismiss the city’s lawsuit. They say their federal case should proceed first, since it was filed first. And they say it doesn't make sense to have two similar cases move forward in two different courts in front of two different judges, raising the potential for conflicting decisions.
“You’ll wind up just duplicating effort,” William Savitt, a partner at New York-based law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, said after the hearing.
He and his colleagues accused the city’s attorneys of using delaying tactics, “procedural game-playing,” and filing a “copycat lawsuit.” Herdman, in turn, said the Browns are dealing with a “contorted procedural morass … of their own making” in federal court.
The Browns, who brought a 57-page presentation to court Friday, also assert that it’s premature for the city to enforce the Modell law, since the team hasn’t moved and wouldn’t be moving until 2029.
Herdman scoffed at that.
“They are saying … we would not be in a position to enforce the Modell law on behalf of the city of Cleveland until somebody kicked a football in Brook Park at the opening of the first Browns game to be played at the Brook Park dome,” said Herdman, a partner at the Jones Day law firm in Cleveland.
The city says the team already is violating the Modell law – and some of the terms of its lease agreement at the existing stadium – by negotiating with Brook Park and preparing for a move.
Moore didn’t say when she will decide on whether to let the case in her courtroom move forward – or to dismiss it or put it on hold.
In federal court, the Browns have amended their lawsuit two times since they originally filed it in October. The city has until the end of June to respond to the latest version of the complaint. Judge David Ruiz has set a scheduling conference on the litigation for mid-July.
After Friday’s hearing, Cleveland Law Director Mark Griffin told reporters “a handful” of people have expressed interest in buying the Browns, if the opportunity arises under the Modell law. He wouldn’t elaborate.
Griffin said the city will keep fighting to protect taxpayers’ investment in the existing stadium. “We’re going to do everything we can to make sure the Browns are held to the lease and to the law,” he said.
Savitt, the team’s lead attorney, said the Browns are confident in their legal stance.
“And very confident,” he added, “that what they’re trying to do is not only compliant in every respect with both the law and the lease but completely in line with what the interests of the citizens of the city and the state and the county – and fans of the team – should be looking out for.”
