LA Rams Owner Stan Kroenke's $100 Million Lawsuit Settlement Rejected

With a court date set for January 2022 for a lawsuit alleging breach of contract, fraud, illegal enrichment and interference in business that caused significant public financial loss relating to the Rams relocating from St. Louis to Los Angeles, team owner Stan Kroenke attempted to settle the case for $100 million, according to Front Office Sports.

Much to the 74-year-old NFL owner’s chagrin, St. Louis, St. Louis County and the St. Louis Regional Convention and Sports Complex Authority rejected the offer to settle the matter out of court and could be looking for as much as $1 billion to resolve the matter before it goes to trial.

To help reduce the settlement amount the plaintiffs are looking for, the NFL could promise to award St. Louis with an expansion franchise, but the league’s 32 owners, who have been “underwhelmed” by Kroenke’s efforts to settle the lawsuit, are “hesitant to share league revenues with another team, even with a massive expansion fee,” per FOS.

Adding some intrigue to the situation is that, in addition to Kroenke, the league’s other 31 owners at the time the lawsuit was filed in 2017 are defendants in the lawsuit. That being the case, former Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson — who made billions when he sold the team in the midst of a misconduct probe — is a defendant in the case, not current team owner David Tepper. Some of Richardson’s former colleagues are worried about his testimony.

In addition to worrying about what Richardson might say under oath, NFL owners also need to be concerned about Kroenke reneging on his commitment to cover all expenses arising from the lawsuit filed against the league, something he is apparently considering doing, according to ProFootballTalk.

Should Kroenke file a lawsuit to get out of the indemnification agreement that’s tied to the relocation lawsuit, it’ll complicate matters further, but it likely won’t be successful, New York Law School sports law professor Dan Lust told FOS.

“Kroenke is likely going to be bound by its terms. He could certainly try to get out of it under a theory of rescission,” Lust said. “There are certain circumstances when contracts can be rescinded if the person signing the contract was a minor, if somebody was mentally incapacitated, circumstances change, or there was some type of material breach. However, by all indications, none of those are met here. Nothing has changed other than that legal costs keep going up and this case is on the verge of trial.”