ST. LOUIS – Rams owner Stan Kroenke took another legal loss Thursday morning in connection with the relocation lawsuit filed against him.
This latest legal blow against Kroenke was dealt by the Missouri Supreme Court. Missouri’s highest court refused to block an order concerning Kroenke and others turning over financial records. The Post-Dispatch reported the details of this story.
Attorneys representing Kroenke, the NFL, and five other top league executives asked the court to block a July order by St. Louis Circuit Judge Christopher McGraugh. The order required Kroenke and the others to turn over financial records that could be used for a jury to consider punitive damages if this case goes to trial and Kroenke loses.
The Post-Dispatch reported that those records for Kroenke would include other sports franchises, management groups, a winery, and other businesses as well as the financial dealings of Kroenke’s wife Ann Walton Kroenke who is a multi-billionaire heir to the Walmart fortune.
Lawyers for Kroenke and the other defendants argued that the request for the records was invasive and that those other entities were not involved in the Rams’ relocation to Los Angeles in 2016. But the high court disagreed and allowed the order to stand.
St. Louis City, St. Louis County, and the St. Louis Regional Convention and Sports Complex Authority sued in 2017 claiming the Rams and the NFL broke league rules and misled the public with the move. The suit claims that the Rams departure cost the city millions of dollars in amusement, ticket and earning taxes.
Last week Judge McGraugh rejected a motion by the defendants to dismiss the case and last month he refused to move the case out of St. Louis.
The civil trial is set for January.
