The Jordan ruling?

Decision on MJ-Knafel motions possible Thursday

CHICAGO -- Early last Friday a bailiff tacked a note on a bulletin board outside the Cook County, Ill., courtroom of Circuit judge Richard Siebel announcing a "ruling" at 11:30 a.m. in Michael Jordan's lawsuit against former girlfriend Karla Knafel. Lawyers, law students, Jordan fans and court buffs stopped, noted the announcement and quickly filled the courtroom, leaving many standing in the aisles and corners.

What would the judge do? members of the assembled throng wondered as they waited for the hearing to begin. Would it be another win for Jordan, adding to his impressive string of courtroom victories in Chicago? [The former Bulls star has won two civil cases in the city.] Would Jordan be present at Friday's hearing as he has been at critical moments in previous cases?

The ruling was one Jordan and his battery of six lawyers had been awaiting with even more anticipation than the people in the courtroom. Jordan started the ball rolling last Oct. 23 when he sued Knafel, accusing her of attempting to extort money from him in excess of the $250,000 he acknowledges paying her for keeping quiet about their early-1990s relationship. In addition to his extortion allegation, Jordan and his lawyers demanded a quick judicial determination that Knafel was entitled to nothing beyond the money he had already paid her and that her claim of a $5 million contract for her silence was illegal and unenforceable.

Jordan's strategy was risky. After carefully keeping the details of his personal life private for two decades, the star chose to sling the first mud in the kind of ugly public battle that could reveal embarrassing personal details. Though Jordan did not specify when his affair with Knafel began, Knafel says that she and Jordan began seeing each other in December 1989, three months after he married his wife, Juanita. Knafel says they continued their affair for a couple of years. Both sides agree that Jordan, thinking for a time that the child Knafel bore in 1992 was his, paid her $250,000 over four years -- but Jordan denies they reached any financial agreement.

Using a legal procedure known as "declaratory judgment," Jordan and his lawyers attempted to wrap up things quickly by forcing the judge to make a ruling. But Knafel then surprised Jordan by hiring noted Chicago trial lawyer Michael Hannafan and filing a countersuit on Nov. 19, alleging that Jordan has reneged on an oral agreement to pay her $5 million when he retired from the NBA. Knafel maintained that Jordan agreed to the payment to protect his image, not because he was threatened. Hannafan went so far as to file in court a photo of Jordan and Knafel sitting together, smiling, on what appears to be a hotel bed. The photo was later published in a Chicago newspaper.

The fast resolution Jordan apparently had in mind did not come to pass.

Nearly nine months later, Siebel was expected to issue a ruling at Friday's pretrial hearing on both motions. The last thing Jordan and his lawyer, Frederick Sperling, want is continued litigation with Knafel, which would force Jordan to answer detailed questions, under oath, in a deposition about his love life.

Moments before the judge started the hearing, Knafel walked in with Hannafan and two other lawyers. Jordan did not appear.

The lawyers made final statements and arguments. Sperling asserted that the payment of hush money was "contrary to public policy," an amorphous claim that lawyers make when no specific law governs the issue.

Hannafan said that Knafel had kept her part of the bargain and that now it was time for Jordan to deliver on his promise. Knafel's silence, Hannafan asserted, was of benefit only to Jordan and his image, and Jordan could not now say that the silence he wanted was contrary to "public policy."

A key issue is whether Jordan could have thought he was the father of the child Knafel became pregnant with in 1992. Sperling argued that if there had been an agreement it was based on a fraud, making it unenforceable: Because Jordan was not the father, any "contract" would be null and void.

Knafel's attorney asserted that Jordan must have known that Knafel dated other men. In one court filing, Knafel said under oath that she told Jordan she was seeing other people and that he frequently teased her about them. "She was young, attractive and single. The only inference possible is that there were other men in her life," Hannafan told Judge Siebel.

Sperling fired back, "To say that every single, young, attractive woman has multiple sex partners is a deeply offensive statement," he said. "This is the kind of statement [the court] will face in this case if it is allowed to continue," Sperling added.

When the lawyers finished, Judge Siebel had a surprise of his own. Even though he had specifically included "ruling" on his schedule for the day, he unexpectedly and abruptly told Knafel, her attorneys and Jordan's attorneys that there would be no ruling that day, that he would rule June 12 on whether to allow the suits to go to trial. Siebel's sudden departure from the posted schedule left everyone wondering what had prompted him to change his mind. Early in the hearing the questions the judge asked of Jordan's lawyers seemed to indicate he was leaning in Knafel's direction; was he now moving toward a ruling in favor of Jordan?

Regardless, Jordan now must wait even longer for a decision that he had hoped would be quick and conclusive.

Sports Illustrated legal analyst Lester Munson regularly Holds Court on sports law and business matters on SI.com.

 

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