With St. Louis getting $790 million from the NFL over the re-relocation of the Rams to L.A., someone in San Diego has gotten an idea.
As explained by Jeff McDonald of the San Diego Union-Tribune, there’s a movement in the former home of the Chargers to sue the NFL over the team’s departure.
Former City Attorney Michael Aguirre has vowed to pursue legal action on his own, if San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria doesn’t authorize a lawsuit. In a letter sent Friday to Gloria, Aguirre promised to file a lawsuit of his own on Friday, January 21.
Gloria presumably would be filing in his capacity as a taxpayer.
“There is established legal precedent for the city of San Diego to recover taxpayer losses from the NFL and the Chargers, as was done under similar circumstances by the city of St. Louis and the St. Louis Regional Convention and Sports Complex Authority,” Aguirre wrote, via McDonald.
Given that the Chargers left in 2017, the statute of limitations for some if not most if not all of the potential legal claims has likely expired by now. For example, California has a relatively short four-year deadline for filing a lawsuit arising from the breach of a written contract. Some states allow as many as 10 years to initiate legal action for contract violations.
Aguirre surely realizes this. That’s why the entire effort may ultimately be a political game, aimed at creating the impression that the powers-that-be blew a chance at collecting hundreds of millions by not filing a lawsuit while it could.
Gloria is a bystander in all of this. He won the job via an election in November 2020. Kevin Faulconer was the Mayor of San Diego when the Chargers moved, and during the four years thereafter.