OK, I’ll devote some brain cells to the Clemens thing

I was just going to let this morning’s thing about the McNamee-Clemens suit pass without further comment, but I can’t not think about it, so let’s flesh it out a bit. I said this in the comments, but for those of you who don’t read those, this is my initial take on what’s happening here:

In light of the affidavit filed by the federal agent last week, it looks like Clemens is almost certainly going to lose his Texas defamation case against McNamee. That’s great for McNamee, but not great enough, because simply winning as a defendant down there doesn’t do anything for him. He’ll still have a mountain of attorneys fees and loads of personal debt to deal with, and you simply can’t pay bills with a defense judgment. What to do about this?

You file a suit in New York, so you can create an ideal negotiating position, with the opening salvo of the negotiation going something like this:

“Look Roger, you’re going to lose and lose badly in Texas, and when that judgment comes out, it’s going to humiliate you. You can’t unilaterally dismiss this case because everyone will know you’re doing it simply to avoid an embarrassing judgment, and you can’t reasonably settle with us as things stand because there’s nothing more embarassing than having to pay money out when you’re the freakin’ plaintiff.

“However, if we sue you in New York, everyone has a chance to get something out of this mess. You’ll be able to drop the Texas suit and avoid a humiliating ruling in your own backyard by saying that you’re doing it to get rid of the New York suit, which you can claim is a bogus distraction, but one worth getting rid of all the same. We’ll get a nice check to pay our fees and get Brian a little something to grow on. After a round of mutual declarations of victory, we end this mess before anyone has to go under oath again.”

There may be a big flaw in there somewhere, but weirder things have happened.


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The Common Man
15 years ago

All I want is for Christmas is to send Roger Clemens and Brian McNamee out to an island somewhere and leave them to work it out.  And if two men enter, and one man leaves, that’s one less man for the rest of us to worry about.

Alex K
15 years ago

If it makes all things that have to do with these two news then I like it. 

As for the Common Man’s comment above- can we find the Island from Lost and then move it?

MooseinOhio
15 years ago

So your saying Roger could essentially have a 1 win, 1 loss record in court proceedings with no real win to speak of.  Looks like there may be a correlation between not having success in the post-season with not having success in court proceeding.

Melody
15 years ago

Won’t that just look like a loss for Roger still the same?  It still ends up that the only one ponying up is Clemens.  How can he even claim to be win-win? 

Lawyers are crazy.

Craig Calcaterra
15 years ago

Melody—because there will be a confidentiality provision in the settlement agreement in which each party promises not to disclose what, if any amount, is paid out.  We can all guess, but we won’t know.