The suit alleges Mayweather and his reps maliciously, knowingly, publicly, and wrongly accused Pacquiao of doping. But the complaint's press-release tone - "blessed with an unmatched combination of speed, power, skill, and guile," the lawsuit reads - doesn't mean Mayweather (or Pacquiao himself, for that matter) can treat it like a PR release.
Why? Because if the litigation-rich recent history of professional sports is any guide, defamation suits can take on a life of their own, particularly when they involve the murky topic of performance-enhancing drug use, as this one does.
Such suits can backfire spectacularly. Just ask Roger Clemens, whose defamation complaint against Brian McNamee put Clemens' reputation on an examination table, where it didn't sit comfortably. Or consider boxer Shane Mosley, whose suit against BALCO founder Victor Conte has dragged on for nearly two years - generating awkward depositions, expensive venue changes, and the publication of Mosley's 2003 grand jury testimony, in which he described injecting himself with endurance-boosting EPO.
Now Pacquiao has joined Clemens, Mosley, Lance Armstrong, Marion Jones, and swimmer Ian Thorpe in the pantheon of athletes who have responded to doping allegations with defamation suits. While none of them ever came close to winning a jury trial, some lost more than they and their lawyers likely ever expected.
Nevertheless, Dan Petrocelli, a Los Angeles-based attorney representing Pacquiao, told the Daily News that those other lawsuits have no bearing on the case put forward by the Philippine boxing sensation.
"If you know anything about Manny Pacquiao, he doesn't have that risk," said Petrocelli. "With lot of these cases, there's some sort of corroboration of the statements - a witness, a prescription, a trainer, a Jose Canseco. Here there's nothing."
Besides Mayweather, the defendants in the suit include the boxer's father, Floyd Sr., his trainer and uncle, Roger, as well as Mayweather Promotions. Also named are Golden Boy Promotions executives Richard Schaefer and Oscar De La Hoya.
New York attorney Judd Burstein, who has represented Golden Boy in other litigation, including Mosley's long-running suit against Conte (Mosley is in the Golden Boy stable of fighters), called Pacquiao's new complaint "frivolous." Burstein says the comments identified in the complaint are statements of opinion and therefore legally protected. In the Mosley suit, he argues the opposite, saying that Conte's statements were not opinion, but that he made them as statements of fact.
Some of the offending comments cited in the Pacquiao complaint were made as recently as last week, when reps for the two sides argued over what sort of drug testing should accompany the March 13 fight. Mayweather's backers launched an intense public campaign for testing that would go beyond that required by the Nevada State Athletic Commission, including blood tests. When Pacquiao balked, Mayweather's crew raised the notion that
Pacquiao wasn't clean, the lawsuit claims, setting out on "a course designed to destroy Pacquiao's career, reputation, honor, and legacy, and jeopardize his ability to earn the highest levels of compensation."
A national hero in his native land, Pacquiao hasn't lost a fight since March of 2005, and has packed on at least 15 pounds of muscle since then. He also hasn't been afraid to climb into the legal ring, suing Golden Boy in 2006 in a contract matter.
The new lawsuit suggests that the contract suit, as well as Pacquiao's defeat of De La Hoya in 2008, have left the defendants motivated by "ill-will, spite, malice, envy and revenge."
Should the suit go forward, Pacquiao and the defendants, can probably look forward to the kind of commentary the Mosley suit has produced. In an interview posted on the fight site Fighthype.com on Wednesday, Mayweather was quoted saying "you must realize this, Shane Mosley took steroids his whole career."
Mosley has admitted to getting steroids and other injectible drugs from Conte at BALCO, but claims he didn't know they were banned substances. He first sued Conte in federal court in California in the spring of 2008 after Conte stated that Mosley knew the drugs were banned. In August of that year, after Mosley's former trainer corroborated Conte's account, Mosley withdrew the lawsuit in California and immediately re-filed it in the Supreme Court of the State of New York.
In December of that year, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston unsealed grand jury testimony from the BALCO investigation and transcripts of Shane Mosley's testimony were publicly released, showing that Mosley had admitted under oath to using BALCO products and never attempted to characterize the drugs as legal substances.
In most circumstances, grand jury testimony remains strictly confidential, and Mosley's defamation suit was likely filed with the expectation that his testimony would not become public. Pacquiao can now hope that no unexpected surprises put him on the defensive legally. Conte and Mosley were deposed in Manhattan in October, and Mosley once again admitted to using steroids and performance-enhancing drugs as he prepared for his Sept. 2003 fight against Oscar De La Hoya.
"Would it be fair, as we sit here today, to say that in the weeks before your fight with Oscar De La Hoya...that you took steroids?" Conte's lawyer asked Mosley.
"Yes," Mosley replied.
"Would it be fair to say you took performance-enhancing drugs in the weeks prior to the fight with Oscar De La Hoya in 2003?"
"Yes," Mosley said.
Conte's lawyers will file a motion to dismiss in January, at about the same time the court process will begin to kick in in the Pacquiao case.
"Manny doesn't really relish being in litigation," said Petrocelli, "but he's worked very hard and he can't let somebody make an accusation like this."
Source: sports.yahoo.com
By Leo Reyes – In the wake of the stalled Pacquiao-Mayweather negotiations, promoter Bob Arum had to find a way to neutralized the offensive posture of the Mayweather negotiating team on the issue of of blood testing.
