A complicated lawsuit has come back to life in Morristown, New Jersey, regarding the NFL's New York Jets and real estate services that a realty company in Morris Plains says it is contractually obligated to offer its employees.
The Jets lease their training facility in Florham Park from the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, which is a public entity. The lawsuit claims that because of this, the team should be treated as other government entities in terms of its legal obligations.
One of those obligations, according to the suit originally filed in 2010, is that the team should publicly advertise for real estate services it makes available to Jets employees. The judge who dismissed the suit last year said that the suit didn't say that the Jets offered any real estate services to its employees. But the realty company that filed the suit says that new evidence shows that they have.
According to court papers filed last week, two former Jets players dealt with a real estate agent who doubled as the team's director of player development. One of the deals was canceled when the player involved was traded to another team.
The suit also says that the team should set aside 7 percent of its contracts to minority owned businesses. The owner of the realty company that filed the suit is African-American. It remains to be seen if the new evidence will sway the judge into determining if the suit now has merit, or how much business it might generate for the realty company behind the lawsuit.
Source: The Star-Ledger, " Morris Plains real estate firm reopens lawsuit against New York Jets," Ben Horowitz, Feb. 16, 2012