A California Superior Court judge has ordered the National Basketball Players Association to produce emails, notes and other materials behind a report that was the impetus for the firing of the union’s former executive director, Billy Hunter.
Judge Huey Cotton ordered the NBPA to turn over the documents surrounding an investigation conducted by law firm Paul Weiss into Hunter’s 17-year tenure at the NBPA at a hearing late last month. Cotton also ordered the union to pay $30,550 in sanctions for failing to comply with a previous order to turn over documents.
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Hunter was fired in February 2013, soon after Paul Weiss issued the report, which alleged Hunter had acted in his own interest and against players’ interests.
The NBPA declined to comment on this story. In court, NBPA attorneys said the documents that Hunter is seeking are protected by attorney-client privilege.
Cotton has set a hearing for Nov. 3 to hear whether the union will seek to appeal his order to turn over the documents.
A decision by the California Court of Appeal to hear a union appeal of Cotton’s order could delay a trial. The lawsuit has already dragged on for three years.
Hunter filed suit against the NBPA in May 2013 seeking $10 million he claims is owed to him by the union. In December 2015, the NBPA filed a counterclaim against Hunter, alleging breach of fiduciary duty, among other things. The Paul Weiss report found that Hunter’s 2010 employment agreement was not properly approved under the union constitution, and the NBPA has taken the position it owes Hunter nothing.
Hunter’s lawyers contend his employment agreement was properly approved and the Paul Weiss report is flawed. They have been fighting to get the information around the investigation, including drafts of the report that were not published, and to talk to witnesses interviewed for the report, which was overseen by Paul Weiss partner Ted Wells.
“The union spent nine months and several million dollars investigating Mr. Hunter, and published a Wells report that picks and chooses fragments from the 37 witnesses that they interviewed,” said Dave Anderson, a partner at law firm Sidley Austin and one of Hunter’s attorneys.
“The union’s lawyers stated in court that they may try to file an extraordinary appeal to oppose Judge Cotton’s order. The question you have to ask yourself is why is the union so afraid to reveal the truth behind the Wells report?”
In its court papers, the NBPA argues that NBPA players fired Hunter not because of what the Paul Weiss report said but the facts that it revealed about Hunter.
