New court rulings in former Kings TV/radio host Grant Napear’s ‘All Lives Matter’ lawsuit
A federal court judge issued new rulings Tuesday in the ongoing legal battle between former Kings television play-by-play announcer Grant Napear and his former Sacramento sports radio employer.
Judge Dale A. Drozd of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California ruled the wrongful termination case can proceed on the grounds of retaliation, but he threw out Napear’s claim of religious discrimination. The judge also denied Napear’s request to file a third amendment to include a breach of contract claim.
Napear is suing Bonneville International Corp., the parent company of Sactown Sports 1140, for firing him after an “All Lives Matter” tweet set off a social media storm in May 2020. Napear is seeking an amount that exceeds $75,000 in damages.
Napear’s tweet came in response to a question from former Kings center DeMarcus Cousins, who asked Napear for his thoughts on Black Lives Matter in the days after George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer. Napear tweeted: “ALL LIVES MATTER … EVERY SINGLE ONE.”
Napear said he didn’t know some believed that phrase was disparaging to the Black Lives Matter movement, but he resigned after 32 years as a Kings TV play-by-play announcer. He was then fired by Bonneville after 26 years as a sports talk radio host. Bonneville pointed to a clause in Napear’s contract prohibiting any act that “might discredit the goodwill, good name or reputation” of the company, citing “a barrage of negative responses and reactions on Twitter from fans and players” as cause for termination.
Napear sued Bonneville for wrongful termination, discrimination and retaliation in October 2021. In April, the court granted Bonneville’s motion to dismiss the case while leaving time for Napear to amend the complaint. Napear amended the complaint in May, arguing state law prohibits employers from discrimination on the basis of religious or political beliefs.
Breach of contract
The court denied Napear’s motion to modify the scheduling order to delay proceedings so he could file a third amended complaint, saying the plaintiff was not diligent in seeking to assert his breach of contract claim.
The judge ruled there will be no further amendments to the pleadings, saying Napear could have raised the breach of contract claim at the case’s inception. The judge added Napear was aware in March 2022 of purportedly new evidence — a “Bonneville Beat” newsletter stating “we will respect individuals’ choices about which organizations they choose to support personally” — which Napear believes strengthened his potential breach of contract claim.
Religious grounds
Napear claimed he was fired for expressing his sincere religious beliefs as a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church, which espouses the “inherent worth and dignity of every person.”
The court on Tuesday granted Bonneville’s motion to dismiss that claim, concluding Napear had “failed to state a plausible claim for religious discrimination.” The court stated the allegations “do not support an inference that defendant was alerted to the purported religious nature of plaintiff’s tweet, or plaintiff’s religion more generally, before defendant terminated plaintiff.”
Retaliation
The court denied Bonneville’s motion to dismiss Napear’s retaliation claim, ruling Napear “has stated a plausible cause for retaliation” under California Labor Code sections 1101 and 1102.
Bonneville argued Napear failed to show the company had a rule, regulation or policy that would have classified his tweet as “political activity.”
“However,” Drozd wrote, “the court finds that plaintiff has sufficiently alleged a ‘rule, regulation, or policy’ under (section) 1101 by alleging … defendant used his termination ‘as an example to all other employees of the Company as an implicit warning that anyone that dared to speak out publicly and criticize the politics of the Black Lives Matter movement would be summarily terminated.’”
