Opinion & Analysis

Singh’s lawsuit vs. the PGA Tour is about to turn dirty

Published

10 years ago

Sep 14, 2016

There’s a saying lawyers like to use when talking to a client about whether it’s worth litigating a case, and in its various forms it goes something like this:

You should always be careful before you decide to wrestle with a pig. Because only two things are guaranteed to happen: you get dirty and the pig likes it.

Never has that been truer than in the case of Singh v. PGA Tour. A recent ruling by the trial judge has blown the case wide open. The judge has issued an order that documents exchanged by the parties are no longer confidential and no longer have to be redacted. That means all documents filed in court are open record and the media will now have full access, which could be a game changer that will test the PGA Tour’s resolve to continue its defense against Singh.

A couple disclaimers: 1) I haven’t spoken to any of the parties in the case and, most importantly, 2) I’m not aware of the terms of the agreement a PGA Tour player signs to play each year.

Before we get into how we got to the point where this case may actually go to trial, let’s do a brief look back at how we got here.

In early 2013, the PGA Tour suspended Vijay Singh for using deer antler spray as a performance enhancing drug. Singh appealed the suspension and late in the process, the PGA Tour dropped the case after the World Doping Agency said it was not longer worried about the antler spray’s use.

In May of 2013, Singh, not one to lay down, sued the PGA Tour alleging a number of different causes of action including: infliction of emotional distress, breach of the membership agreement and breach of an implied warranty of good faith and fair dealing. The judge threw out the majority of the claims Singh brought, but allowed the claims of breach of good faith and fair dealing to go forward.

In non-legal terms, a breach of good faith and fair dealing means exactly what it sounds like. Basically, Singh is claiming the PGA Tour had a responsibility to treat him fairly and because it didn’t, Singh suffered damages. Last we heard he is alleging around $5 million in damages.

Evidence of such damages would be ridicule and public embarrassment such as the image below.

Singh’s allegations of unfair treatment stem from his contention the deer antler spray didn’t include any banned substances as listed ingredients. He also correctly notes the testing laboratory found no anabolic steroids as active ingredients. His final attack against the PGA Tour is likely his strongest.

When he gave notice of electing his right to appeal the suspension, the PGA Tour told him he would be allowed to play pending his appeal. But any money he earned during the appeal process would be put in an escrow account. So if Singh lost the appeal-he would lose the escrowed money. Singh maintains this constitutes bad faith as no other pro has ever been subjected to the same treatment while appealing.

Making things worse for the PGA Tour is the fact they later dropped the suspension and Singh learned of at least five other golfers who used the spray and were never suspended.

When Singh’s lawyer responded to a question from Golf.com regarding whether Singh was prepared to go to trial, he said, “Absolutely.” Remember the pig analogy above? Well in this case, Singh is the “pig.” That’s not a bad thing, either.

What it means in this case is his lawyers get to go look through document after document the PGA Tour has and turn up any “mud” they can. They will see the PGA Tour’s policies on suspensions and whether any other golfers were received the same treatment. The PGA Tour doesn’t have the same chance against Singh. He already admitted he used the spray, everything else is pretty much irrelevant.

A recent ruling by the trial judge has made the case more precarious for the PGA Tour.

Up until now, documents filed in court had to be heavily redacted due to confidentiality. Now they don’t, meaning all the documents filed in court become public record. You, me and anyone else can go to the courthouse and make copies of any documents filed.

It’s rarely a “win” when the inner workings of a business are made public. Customers get to see, competitors get information and for the most part none of it is good. The PGA Tour now has to choose if they want information made public or if they should try to resolve the case… and how much does that cost?

There is a reason Roger Goodell did not want to testify in the case of deflated footballs against Tom Brady. It had very little to do with a deflated football. It had everything to do with how the NFL makes decisions, because professional sports leagues are just like any other business — they want to keep certain information private.

There is likely a greater than 75 percent chance this case settles before ever getting to trial. Less than 1 precent of cases go to trial and the PGA Tour has very little benefit from making this more public. If winning the case results in unwanted information becoming public, how much of a win is it really?

If the case gets to trial, there is a very real chance it turns ugly. Singh’s lawyer will put Tim Finchem on the stand and grill him over the PGA Tour’s policies and why they treated Singh differently. Finchem will have to respond and will have to tell the truth. It’s very possible there is testimony regarding other players suspensions and why they were treated differently than Singh.

And if you don’t think Finchem is sweating the case, he walked out of his deposition with Singh’s lawyer and refused to return — something I have never seen in my years of practice.

Singh doesn’t have those issues. The PGA Tour already aired his dirty laundry. The question now is, how much are they about to pay for it?

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19 Comments

Stan Fletcher

Oct 8, 2016 at 4:27 pm

The tour screwed up by failing to be consistent. No reason to penalize VJ and not others who were equally guilty. The case will most likely be settled, but if pursued by VJ it will not paint a pretty picture either of him or the PGA Tour.

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Boobsy McKiss

Sep 15, 2016 at 8:06 pm

Would love to see all the policies and numbers of the PGA come to public view. First time I’ve ever rooted for Vijay. Stick it to the man Vij!

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Adam

Sep 15, 2016 at 2:54 pm

It seems strange that none of the other big golf websites (golf.com, golfdigest.com, golfchannel.com) have posted anything about this lately. I’m not a conspiracy guy, but I can’t help but wonder if they don’t want to upset the PGA Tour.

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Chuck

Sep 14, 2016 at 8:42 pm

I have seen (rarely) lawyers terminate depositions and walk out. Even rarer would be a litigant walking out, but it has happened. I think Trump did it once in one of his libel cases.

Usually, unless there is a very good reason, the trial judge will sanction the party who walked out. A party could potentially be defaulted, depending on circumstances.

Tim Finchem is a lawyer himself; and the sanctions for his walkout would, I expect, be very serious unless he had a tremendously good reason that is demonstrated on the transcript.

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Pingback: Golf Dispute Resolution · Pigs And Trials: Vijay Singh v. PGA Tour
Justin

Sep 14, 2016 at 1:20 pm

I’m not particularly fond of Vijay, but I think he is right in this case. The PGA tour and other sports federations need to be exposed for the “good ol’ boys clubs” that they are.

Reply Report comment
- Michael
  
  Sep 15, 2016 at 3:25 pm
  
  I’m not sure why you felt it was relevant to tell us you are “not particularly fond of Vijay”, but you think he is right in this case. There is an inference in your comment that under your version of normal circumstances you would not extend/support Vijay’s exercise of his rights and legal remedies, but this time you will make an exception. Is that how you feel about people you “are not particularly fond of”?
  
  Reply Report comment
Mitch Young

Sep 14, 2016 at 1:10 pm

Good on Vijay. we can be pretty sure this isn’t about the money, but something that stems from his upbringing that he felt he was treated unfairly by the tour he has supported for all these years. Since he has the means to pursue this to the fullest extent, the pga tour will no doubt try to sweep this under the carpet and settle out of court.

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Dave r

Sep 14, 2016 at 12:03 pm

Good for you V.j. Give it them

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ooffa

Sep 14, 2016 at 10:26 am

Oh Deer!!!!!!

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Flip

Sep 14, 2016 at 8:40 am

Sand groid

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Jack Nash

Sep 14, 2016 at 8:32 am

Looks like there could be some “Character” issues with the PGA. That being the case maybe the PGA will do the same with Singh. Like was he in or out of “Character” when he was found cheating on the Euro Tour many years ago. Character actions are a two way street. If at the time( and it’s obvious) Singh figured that the Spray would help, because he’d heard it would that would give him an unfair advantage over other players, he used it. At the time WADA had that spray on its banned list. The PGA is not a testing org. so they went with Wada’s regs. and sat Singh out, until it was found that the spray was ok to use. I think that the lawsuit is more about Singh being caught and embarrassed that he was found out again that he figured he needed to sue.

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- Chris
  
  Sep 14, 2016 at 12:09 pm
  
  Yup. Would be interesting to watch all of them throw the other under the bus…..
  
  Reply Report comment
- Joey
  
  Sep 14, 2016 at 3:29 pm
  
  Singh wasn’t the only player found to be using it, but oddly enough he was the only player benched by the Tour. Then, when reativated, he was the only player not allowed to keep his earnings. The PGA couldn’t be more wrong and that is what he is going to prove. Why was one of the only minority players on the Tour treated differently than the white players who were found using the same substance? That is going to be the $5,000,000 question that the Tour doesn’t want to answer.
  
  I personally don’t think he was using it as a performance enhancer. In Eastern Medicine, which I know he is a believer, it is prescribed, meaning the physician provides it for you, for different types of injury healing. I’ve Benin prescribed it before and used it, don’t know if it was the only reason I healed well though. Regardless, being Vijay is the only unfair advantage he needs because no one out works that guy. I hope he takes it all the way and the Tour regrets ever picking this fight with him. The Tour bullies players into doing their bidding all the time. I’m glad someone finally stood up to the Tour.
  
  Reply Report comment
- Tim
  
  Sep 14, 2016 at 6:17 pm
  
  Actually it wasn’t banned when he was suspended and I don’t think it was banned when he took it. Unfortunately the PGA Tour didn’t pay enough attention to the WADA memos and missed that they had removed the spray from the banned list a number of years ago. That’s another big reason why the PGA Tour is screwed. Essentially they treated a player differently, suspended him and made him look like he was cheating, when he didn’t actually break any rules.
  
  Reply Report comment
- Michael
  
  Sep 15, 2016 at 3:40 pm
  
  Then tell us why it seems Vijay was treated differently than other players. The primary premise of his action seems to rest on “breach of an implied warranty of good faith and fair dealing.” I would guess you skipped over that. Do you understand what that cause of action actually means or did you decide to simply go for your admitted dislike for Vijay despite that little qualifier designed to make it look like you were a reasonable guy and would overlook the fact you can’t stand him?
  
  Your line of thought really doesn’t hold much water and is based on a bit of character assassination that goes back to an incident from many years ago. That incident itself, seems to have a lot of different interpretations as to what really happened. It would be understandable that because of that, Vijay felt it was even more necessary for him to mount an aggressive defense.
  
  You make quite a few assumptions regarding what Vijay thought and why he has handled this as he has. All of them are unsupported by facts or evidence. They aren’t even hearsay.
  
  Just wondering … How do you feel about Tiger Woods and what were you saying when his personal life spilled out into the public arena?
  
  Reply Report comment
Sing

Sep 14, 2016 at 8:24 am

I hope he pursues this to the fullest. He does not seem like a person only after money, so I bet he will continue to push the envelope.

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- Roy Hobbs
  
  Sep 14, 2016 at 6:21 pm
  
  Vijay is all about the money.
  And I think the number will end up considerably higher than $5mil.
  
  Reply Report comment
M Schnitzel

Sep 14, 2016 at 7:43 am

Good for Vijay! Stick it to the man!

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