NFL agent Ben Dogra has alleged in court documents that CAA Sports is attempting to "publicly smear" him, the latest salvo in an increasingly bitter legal battle between the agent and the agency that fired him four years ago. The case started out innocuously enough when CAA Sports filed a sealed motion in St. Louis federal court Nov. 5. to vacate the fourth award in what had been a private arbitration between Dogra, who had been co-Head of CAA Football, and the agency. Dogra had been employed by CAA Sports from '06 until he was fired in November '14. But then Dogra, in a counterclaim against the agency filed the afternoon before Thanksgiving, attached the original arbitration award which contained many revelations about the case, including a finding that he was fired "without cause" under the terms of his employment agreement. CAA Sports voiced objections in court papers about Dogra's move to put the arbitration into the public realm, the timing of it, as well as about Dogra himself. "The Opinion and Award that Dogra shared with the public in violation of his contractual confidentiality obligations provides just a glimpse into the degenerate and intolerable acts Dogra unleashed upon his subordinates, colleagues, superiors, and business partners that ultimately caused CAA to terminate his employment," CAA Sports alleged in its court filing. "CAA terminated Dogra’s employment on November 13, 2014 as a result of his intolerable and abhorrent behavior in the workplace and in conducting business as an employee of CAA," the agency alleged in its filing.
CALLED A "GRATUITOUS ATTACK": Dogra was fired for behavior he engaged in from late October through mid-November '14, including offensive emails, texts and phone messages he sent to coworkers and others, according to the arbitrator's first award. But Dogra, in a filing on Friday, asked the judge to ignore "CAA's gratuitous attacks" on Dogra, in the agency's recent court filings, saying they have no basis in fact or in the arbitration award. "One of its main goals at this juncture is to attempt to publicly smear Mr. Dogra with overheated rhetoric and baseless allegations," Dogra's legal team said in court filings. "CAA has called Mr. Dogra’s counsel 'underhanded' for the sin of filing a brief at 2:25 pm on the day before a holiday and now calls Mr. Dogra’s behavior 'degenerate' and 'depraved.' Of course, the Arbitrator made no such findings about Mr. Dogra’s behavior. CAA’s strident language appears designed to influence and mislead a broader audience." Both sides have previously contended in court papers and in statements that they won the arbitration. Although the arbitrator found Dogra was fired "without cause" under the terms of his employment agreement, he lost other claims, such as an argument that he had not sold his football representation business to CAA, but rather, licensed it to the agency. In its unsealed motion in the court case last week, CAA appeared to be telling its side of the story. In its filing last week, CAA noted that although Dogra had won the "without cause" claim, CAA Sports was "well within its rights to terminate Dogra's contract."
NOT CLEAR HOW MUCH HAS BEEN PAID: CAA Sports noted that Dogra had to pay the agency $3.6M, an amount which equals his annual salary for '14, but was able to keep client commissions that he had assigned to CAA Sports for clients under the employment contract. "Because the majority of clients co-represented by Dogra and one or more CAA agents elected to stay with CAA rather than continue to be represented by Dogra, CAA collected more revenues that were payable to Dogra than Dogra had collected that were then payable to CAA," CAA Sports said in court documents. It is not clear exactly how much money CAA Sports has paid to Dogra, even from the latest filings, but the amount that spurred the lawsuit is about $2.3M, according to Dogra's attorneys, which represents interest payments on client commissions of more than $12M which appears to be client commissions from '13 through '15 from the court documents. He was fired in the middle of an employment contract which ran from '12-16.
