{"id":32192,"date":"2016-09-23T11:12:12","date_gmt":"2016-09-23T16:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/?p=32192"},"modified":"2016-09-23T11:12:12","modified_gmt":"2016-09-23T16:12:12","slug":"bagwell-raven-vs-wwe-lawsuit-update-attorneys-sides-claim-foul-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2016\/09\/23\/bagwell-raven-vs-wwe-lawsuit-update-attorneys-sides-claim-foul-play\/","title":{"rendered":"Bagwell &#038; Raven vs. WWE Lawsuit Update &#8211; Attorneys for both sides claim foul play"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"pwtor-459650267\" class=\"pwtor-before-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><hr \/><b>SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)... <\/b>\r\n\r\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?show_id=3076978&theme=light&playlist=false&playlist-continuous=false&autoplay=false&live-autoplay=false&chapters-image=true&episode_image_position=right&hide-logo=false&hide-likes=false&hide-comments=false&hide-sharing=false&hide-download=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"140px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\r\n<hr \/><\/div><p><strong>WWE Network Royalty Lawsuit Updates &#8211; September 2016<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Buff Bagwell &amp; Raven (Scott Levy) vs. WWE<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>September 23 Update:<\/strong>\u00a0There was a contentious back-and-forth between WWE (the defendants) and the attorneys for Buff Bagwell and Raven (plaintiffs) in legal filings this week.<\/p>\n<p>WWE filed a motion on Wednesday (September 21) claiming a rules violation in the Plaintiff&#8217;s amended complaint against WWE in the U.S. District Court of Connecticut.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;WWE respectfully seeks the Court&#8217;s guidance on how best to move forward in light of the procedural quagmire caused by the Plaintiffs&#8217;s filing of defective pleadings,&#8221; attorney Jerry McDevitt argued. WWE said they will not formally respond to the amended complaint by the deadline of October 10 until the claimed issue is resolved.<\/p>\n<p>Attorneys for Bagwell &amp; Raven replied the next day (Sept. 22) accusing WWE of misinterpreting the law and misconstruing the facts of the amended complaint to mislead the court.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As appears to be a disturbingly common practice of this Defendant, they attempt to prejudice the Court by injecting outrageous claims of knowingly false allegations and misleadingly assert that Plaintiffs&#8217;s counsel &#8216;acknowledged&#8217; this,&#8221; attorney Brenden Leydon wrote.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The real facts are that Defendant improperly served a Rule 11 motion of Plaintiffs&#8217;s counsel falsely asserting among other claims that WWE had no royalty obligation to Bagwell (despite them actually paying royalties to him in 2016).&#8221;<\/p><div id=\"pwtor-1941950803\" class=\"pwtor-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280 __336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>Bagwell, now joined by Raven, are suing for WWE Network royalty payments on behalf of themselves and other former wrestlers similarly situated. The attorneys concluded their response that the Court should &#8220;enter an order granting its Motion to Amend its Complaint,&#8221; despite WWE&#8217;s &#8220;misguided&#8221; objections.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; As a matter of record, WWE filed a corporate disclosure statement on Friday (September 23) noting that WWE &#8220;is a publicly traded corporation with no parent corporation and that no publicly held corporation owns ten percent or more of its stock.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>***<\/p>\n<p><strong>September 7 Update:\u00a0<\/strong>Attorneys for Buff Bagwell filed an amended class action complaint against WWE, adding former WWE\/WCW\/ECW wrestler Raven (Scott Levy) to the lawsuit as a plaintiff.<\/p>\n<p>Bagwell and Levy, &#8220;individually and on behalf of all other similarly situated,&#8221; allege that they &#8220;have not received contractually owed royalty payments from WWE&#8221; for WCW-related content that has been sold or licensed through WWE Network.<\/p>\n<p>Bagwell and Levy also allege non-payment &#8220;of all categories of royalties within 90 days following the end of the fiscal quarter.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In total, the Plaintiffs allege that total claims of the individuals in the Class action lawsuit &#8220;are in excess of $5.0 million in the aggregate.&#8221; Also, the total number of wrestlers in the proposed class is &#8220;greater than 100.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Levy&#8217;s 2000s-era contract was included in the lawsuit, which includes the royalty item &#8220;other technology, including technology not yet created&#8221; that is the source of contention for former WWE wrestlers who signed booking contracts with that clause.<\/p><div id=\"pwtor-680866969\" class=\"pwtor-content-1 pwtor-entity-placement\"><!-- Tag ID: pwtorchcom_test_300x600 -->\r\n<div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280 __300x600\" id=\"pwtorchcom_test_300x600\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x600\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x600\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>Specific to Levy, the amended complaint noted that WWE paid Levy a royalty for DVD sales of Paul Heyman&#8217;s recent home video release, but not a royalty for airing the same product on WWE Network.<\/p>\n<p>The amended complaint in the U.S. District Court of Connecticut lists 15 items for relief and seeks a jury trial on behalf of Bagwell, Levy, and other wrestlers similarly situated in the Class, if certified by the court.<\/p>\n<p>The attorneys filed a separate document motioning for the class to be certified by the court. The document identifies the parameters and guidelines for wrestlers to be considered in the class along with Bagwell &amp; Levy who allege they are owed royalties on WWE Network content.<\/p>\n<p>WWE has until September 28 to respond to the amended complaint from Bagwell and now Levy, as well as the latest motion to certify the class.<\/p>\n<p>READ MORE: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2016\/08\/16\/wwe-facing-new-lawsuit-buff-bagwell-seeking-network-royalty-payments-timeline-events-led-suit-bagwells-recent-royalty-check\/\">Original Report on Bagwell&#8217;s lawsuit against WWE in August<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"pwtor-end-article-groups pwtor-entity-placement\" id=\"pwtor-755984849\"><div id=\"pwtor-2284333733\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\nTHANK YOU FOR VISITING<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>WWE Network Royalty Lawsuit Updates &#8211; September 2016 Buff Bagwell &amp; Raven (Scott Levy) vs. WWE September 23 Update:\u00a0There was a contentious back-and-forth between WWE (the defendants) and the attorneys for Buff Bagwell and Raven <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2016\/09\/23\/bagwell-raven-vs-wwe-lawsuit-update-attorneys-sides-claim-foul-play\/\" title=\"Bagwell &#038; Raven vs. WWE Lawsuit Update &#8211; Attorneys for both sides claim foul play\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1239,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1043,160,71,3868,251],"class_list":["post-32192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news_wwe","tag-buff-bagwell","tag-raven","tag-wwe","tag-wwe-lawsuits","tag-wwe-network"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/WWELogo_3x2.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32192"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32193,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32192\/revisions\/32193"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}