US: Donald Sterling appeals dismissal of $600M antitrust suit vs NBA

Former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling is appealing the dismissal of his $600 million antitrust lawsuit against the NBA and his wife, Shelly Sterling.

The filing, with the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, comes one month after US District Judge Fernando M. Olguin ruled against Sterling.

Olguin said in his decision that he was “skeptical Sterling suffered any injury at all, let alone an antitrust injury” by the sale of the team for $2 billion to ex-Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and called other parts of the lawsuit implausible.

Sterling, 81, had claimed in the lawsuit that he could have gotten more than $2 billion for the team but the circumstances of the sale “markedly reduced” the price.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver banned Sterling from the league for life in 2014 and fined him $2.5 million over recorded racist remarks that he made to a friend.

The dismissed lawsuit also had named Silver, his predecessor as commissioner, David Stern, and two doctors who examined Sterling and determined that he had symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, leading his wife to remove him from a family trust that owned the Clippers at the time.

Full Content: NY Daily News

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