federal court | Horse Racing Free Tips

Baffert Wants Bettors’ Class-Action Suit Reassigned To Judge Who Already Dismissed Similar Case

Three days after a New Jersey federal judge ordered a class-action lawsuit filed in 2021 by a group of bettors against Bob Baffert to be transferred to a federal court in Kentucky, the legal team for the Hall-of-Fame trainer filed a motion seeking the reassignment of the case to a different, specific Kentucky judge who last summer dismissed a similar case against Baffert.

Baffert's Feb. 23 filing in United States District Court (Western District of Kentucky) asked for the reassignment based on the following reasoning:

“The Plaintiffs in this case are a group of disgruntled gamblers who placed bets on the 2021 [GI] Kentucky Derby and lost. In this action, they attempt to do what courts throughout the country have routinely rejected: they seek to recoup their gambling losses through a myriad of frivolous claims,” the Baffert filing stated.

“Plaintiffs initially filed this case in the Central District of California, only to voluntarily dismiss it when threatened with a Motion to Dismiss and Rule 11 sanctions. Plaintiffs then refiled the case in the District of New Jersey and Baffert filed a Motion to Dismiss in New Jersey.

“Rather than addressing the merits of Baffert's Motion to Dismiss, the District Court in New Jersey issued an Opinion and Order [on Feb. 20] transferring the case to the Western District of Kentucky,” the filing continued.

“One of the primary reasons the Court in New Jersey transferred this case to the Western District of Kentucky is that an almost identical case was previously been decided by the Hon. David J. Hale. In the prior case, Mattera, et al. v. Robert A. Baffert, et al., Judge Hale considered similar claims made by a group of disgruntled gamblers against Baffert involving the same 2021 Kentucky Derby.

“In transferring this case to the Western District of Kentucky, the New Jersey Court relied heavily on the fact that Judge Hale had previously considered the similar matter and that judicial economy and the interests of justice 'strongly' favored this case being assigned to him,” the filing continued.

“In sum, the District of New Jersey transferred this case to the Western District of Kentucky because it was that Court's determination that this matter should be resolved by the 'same decision-maker' that ruled in the Mattera action. That decision maker is Judge Hale. The Opinion from the New Jersey Court repeatedly cites to the fact that the case at bar involves the

same allegations, facts and defendants as the matter previously decided by Judge Hale…

“Given that one of the primary reasons that this case was transferred to the Western District of Kentucky was because of Judge Hale's familiarity with the issues in this case, the interests of judicial economy and justice dictate that the matter be reassigned to him,” Baffert's filing concluded.

The plaintiffs in the case had yet to file a legal response to Baffert's motion as of 3 p.m. on Feb. 26.

The original version of the suit was led by Michael Beychok, the winner of the 2012 National Horseplayers Championship. It was filed four days after Baffert's May 9, 2021, disclosure that Medina Spirit had tested positive for betamethasone after crossing the finish wire first in the Derby.

The Beychok-led class-action group of horseplayers alleged they were cheated out of their property by Baffert on the basis that his betamethasone-positive trainee purportedly prevented them from cashing winning tickets on the runner-up.

Baffert has not only denied those allegations and asked for the case to be dismissed, but his legal team has also stated in court documents that the plaintiffs have twisted their case so far from reality that their alleged misstatements amount to libel.

The Mattera v. Baffert case that got tossed out of court by Hale on July 20, 2023, for failure to state a claim is currently being appealed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. That suit alleged negligence, breach of contract, and unjust enrichment because the plaintiffs' losing pari-mutuel bets on the 2021 Derby weren't honored as winners.

Last week, when transferring the case led by Beychok out of New Jersey, U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz wrote that, “[T]he Western District of Kentucky has already resolved, on the merits, a case that is closely similar to this one…. There are, in short, fundamental similarities between the [Mattera] case and this lawsuit…. Having the same court handle both cases would help ensure that like cases–and these are very much like cases–are treated alike. That is a fundamental goal of our justice system.”

The post Baffert Wants Bettors’ Class-Action Suit Reassigned To Judge Who Already Dismissed Similar Case appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

HBPA: ‘Best Of Both Worlds’ For HISA Is ‘Worst Of All Worlds’ For Horsemen

With oral arguments in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit now five weeks away, the National Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association (NHBPA) filed a legal brief Aug. 25 underscoring that the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) Authority unconstitutionally “wants the best of both worlds” by allegedly portraying itself as both a governmental body or a private organization “depending on which suits its interests on any individual argument.”

“Sometimes [the Authority] wants to be like a government entity, with the power to compel registration, collect mandatory fees, conduct searches, draw blood and urine samples, and impose sanctions with 'the force of federal law,'” stated the 36-page brief filed Friday by the NHBPA and 12 of its affiliates.

“Other times it wants to be a private business league, choosing its own board, running its own corporate affairs, and exempt from the Appointments and Appropriations clauses, the Freedom of Information Act, etc…” the brief continued.

This purported dual nature of the Authority, the NHBPA alleged, “exposes the overall flaw” by which the 2022 rewrite of the HISA law should be struck down.

“Nothing could be more unfair or inequitable than to have a regulator with all the powers of government but exempt from all the democratic accountability and safeguards for liberty imposed on government,” the NHBPA's filing stated.

“The best of both worlds for the Authority is the worst of all worlds for horsemen,” the NHBPA's filing asserted.

The Fifth Circuit oral arguments scheduled for the first week in October represent the latest attempt by the NHBPA to derail the HISA law via an underlying lawsuit that has persisted in the federal court system for nearly 2 ½ years.

In addition to the HISA Authority, personnel from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are defendants in that suit.

Back on Aug. 4, the Authority defendants filed their own brief that told the court the continued legal attacks by the NHBPA are futile because “Congress, the Executive, and all three federal courts that have considered the amended Act have reached the same conclusion: HISA is now constitutional…

“Appellants' scattershot attempts to invalidate the Act on other grounds come up short, too,” the Authority's brief continued.

The NHBPA's Aug. 25 filing swatted back at those claims, citing a legal precedent that stated “it is a central tenet of liberty that the government may not…allow private individuals to regulate other private individuals.”

As the NHBPA put it, “That is now what happens every day in horseracing. The district court must be reversed, and the Act declared unconstitutional, again.”

The first time the HBPA plaintiffs attempted to challenge the original 2020 version of the HISA statute in federal court, on Mar. 15, 2021, the suit was dismissed, on March 31, 2022.

The HBPA plaintiffs then appealed, leading to the above-referenced Fifth Circuit Court reversal on Nov. 18, 2022, that remanded the case back to the lower court. In the interim, an amended version of HISA got passed by Congress and was signed into law by President Joe Biden on Dec. 29, 2022.

On May 4, 2023, the lower court deemed that the new version of HISA was constitutional because the rewrite of the law fixed the problems the Fifth Circuit had identified.

The HBPA plaintiffs then swiftly filed another appeal back to the Fifth Circuit, which is where the case stands now.

“The FTC and the Authority continue to tie themselves in knots trying to get around two obvious problems: the Act, even as revised, does not allow the FTC to amend or modify rules when they are proposed by the Authority,” the NHBPA's Aug. 25 filing stated. “And the Act, even as revised, still requires the FTC to approve rules written by the Authority on a consistency basis, which this Court held to be a violation of the private non-delegation doctrine.”

The NHBPA alleged in its filing that the Authority and the FTC's “solution to a lack of public accountability is to find an additional way to eliminate public accountability, making matters worse.”

The NHBPA's filing warned of dire ramifications to society in general if the Fifth Circuit doesn't declare the recently amended HISA law unconstitutional.

“If this Court ratifies this law, we will see more and more of our democracy slip away as Congress increasingly turns to this convenient charade of private self-regulatory corporations to govern entire industries,” the NHBPA's filing stated.

The post HBPA: ‘Best Of Both Worlds’ For HISA Is ‘Worst Of All Worlds’ For Horsemen appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Giannelli Appeals Conviction, 3 1/2-Year Sentence

Lisa Giannelli, who was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison Sept. 8 after being found guilty of peddling purportedly performance-enhancing drugs as a years-long protégé under the recently convicted drug-dealing veterinarian Seth Fishman, filed a formal notice of appeal for both her conviction and sentence in federal court Sept. 21.

Giannelli, 56, of Dalton, Delaware, was also ordered to pay a fine of $100,000 and to forfeit $900,000.

“This was not a one-time thing,” Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil of U.S. District Court (Southern District of New York) said at the time of sentencing. “For 18 years, Ms. Giannelli marketed and sold what she knew were illegal and powerful performance-enhancing drugs.”

Fishman, who was sentenced to 11 years in prison on July 11 after two felony drug-supplying convictions in a decades-long international racehorse doping conspiracy, has also appealed his conviction and penalties.

The post Giannelli Appeals Conviction, 3 1/2-Year Sentence appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

ITHA vs. Arlington to Federal Court

A $775,000 purse account dispute between the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association (ITHA) and Arlington International Racecourse, LLC, that has simmered for over half a year got escalated to federal court Wednesday.

The ITHA is alleging a purse account underpayment in 2021 from now-defunct Arlington and a breach of contract triggered by Arlington's refusal to hand over the money once it became known the property was scheduled to be sold and that no racing would occur there in 2022.

Asked for comment via email late Wednesday afternoon, Arlington president Tony Petrillo wrote, “I haven't heard of this matter.” TDN then provided Petrillo with a copy of the lawsuit and gave him an hour to digest it, but did not receive a further reply prior to deadline for this story.

However, Churchill Downs Inc. (CDI), the Kentucky gaming corporation that owns Arlington, had stated in a March 23, 2022, letter to the ITHA that an overpayment actually occurred last racing season, and that any additional purse-account revenues that did accrue via simulcasting after the race meet ended in September don't have to be delivered to the horsemen just yet.

A chunk of this dispute hinges on how the two long-time adversarial entities define the word “track” as it appears in the contract they inked for the 2020-21 race meets.

“The term 'TRACK' as used in the Agreement refers to the entity Arlington Park Racecourse, LLC, not the physical racetrack itself,” wrote Joseph Quinn, CDI's corporate counsel. “Arlington is actively pursuing additional horse racing opportunities in the State of Illinois. Until Arlington knows that it will not hold a future succeeding Race Meeting, it is not required to deliver the amounts held in the purse account to the ITHA.”

Quinn's letter to the ITHA then included this stunner: CDI wants the horsemen to pay $150,000 toward the purse account, “as required under the agreement”-even though Arlington missed the deadline for applying for 2022 dates at any Illinois location more than eight months ago.

The ITHA, in its Apr. 20 civil complaint filed in United States District Court (Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division), disputed the points made by CDI in the Mar. 23 letter and framed the situation like this:

“The parties negotiated specific terms regarding any 'underpayment' of purses to address the possibility that Arlington would not be holding races at the Arlington Park racetrack in 2022….

“The contract provided that if Arlington underpaid purses in any amount during 2021, the underpayments would be 'carried forward and added to Purses for distribution at the next succeeding Race Meeting at TRACK.'”

“The contract further provided that 'if no such succeeding Race Meeting takes place, Arlington 'will deliver to ITHA the amount of the underpayment as soon as it is known that there will be no such Race Meeting…'”

Notwithstanding “multiple written requests” to deliver the money, the ITHA is alleging that Arlington and CDI are still refusing to pay.

“It has been known for many months that Arlington Park has sadly hosted its last horse race,” the complaint stated. “As has been widely reported and acknowledged, Arlington, LLC, and/or CDI has agreed to sell the Arlington Park property to the Chicago Bears.

“There will be no succeeding race meeting at Arlington Park in 2022. Indeed, there will be no such race meeting in 2022 at any venue operated by Arlington, LLC, in Illinois….

Arlington, LLC, has no plans to conduct a race meeting in Illinois at any time in the foreseeable future.”

With regard to CDI's “reminder” in the Quinn letter for the ITHA to pay the $150,000 to the purse account, the complaint stated that CDI has both the purpose of the payment and the financial calculations wrong.

According to the ITHA, the contract “provided that if certain conditions were met with respect to the purses” the ITHA would “contribute $150,000 to purses for Illinois-restricted stakes races.”

CDI's Mar. 23 request instead asked for that money to be paid “to the purse account.”

“Arlington's own accounting of the purse account balance from 2021 (more than $775,000) already reflects a $150,000 reduction in the underpayment,” the complaint stated.

“In other words, if ITHA were to send Arlington, LLC, a check for $150,000 today, the result would be that the already-substantial underpayment of approximately $775,000 (money to which ITHA is legally entitled) would grow by $150,000 to approximately $925,000.

“By the time Arlington, LLC, requested that ITHA make a payment to the purse account, Arlington, LLC, was already in material breach of the parties' agreement,” the complaint stated.

With regard to CDI's assertion that it is searching for an alternate Illinois location at which to apply for a license to stage races, the ITHA's complaint stated this:

“While Arlington, LLC's, letter claims that it is 'actively pursuing additional horse racing opportunities in the State of Illinois,' Arlington, LLC, has never identified any such opportunities, even when pressed to do so by the Illinois Racing Board.”

The ITHA's suit seeks a declaration that Arlington has breached the contract, all allegedly outstanding purse amounts, plus damages in an amount to be established at trial.

The post ITHA vs. Arlington to Federal Court appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post