Cowboys receiver Dez Bryant, faced with a lawsuit filed by a former member of his inner circle, has opted to engage the battle with a lawsuit of his own. The ensuing legal tit-for-tat could have unintended consequences for Bryant.
State Senator Royce West, who previously served as a trusted advisor to Bryant, launched the process by suing Bryant for trashing a rental home. Instead of defending those claims on the merits, Bryant exercised his right to countersue West, accusing West and non-party (for now) David Wells of various misdeeds regarding Bryant’s financial interests, including a claim that West and his law firm took more than $300,000 from Bryant and that Wells “absconded” with more than $200,000 in endorsement funds. The lawsuit reportedly seeks an award of “exemplary” (also known as punitive) damages against West.
Officially, West responded by threatening another lawsuit against Bryant and his lawyer for defamation, calling Bryant’s allegations “lies and frivolous.”
Unofficially, West and Wells could be in position to create plenty of havoc for Bryant. Parties in contentious litigation routinely resort to tactics that on one level are aimed at helping the case and that on a deeper level are aimed at causing mischief -- either to leverage the opponent into a settlement or to make the opponent miserable. That’s why lawyers consulting with parties reviewing their options in such situations need to ask questions like this: (1) what’s the worst thing about you that isn’t publicly known?; (2) is there any way the people you’d be suing know about this or within the confines of the litigation will uncover it?; and (3) are you comfortable with that information becoming publicly known?
West and Wells surely know everything there is to know about Bryant, and the claims against West will eventually give West a platform and an incentive to make these things known -- and to characterize them as negatively as possible. If Bryant is claiming that West and/or Wells should have made better or more marketing deals on Bryant’s behalf, they’ll have a natural opening to delve into and/or otherwise expose anything and everything that would have made Bryant far less marketable to potential sponsors that his lawyers will argue that he was or should have been.
The fact that Bryant pursued this strategy suggests either that these questions were asked and he’s fine with the possible consequences of giving West (and perhaps Wells) an incentive to use their inside information to make Bryant look bad, or that the questions weren’t asked. If it’s the latter, and if there’s anything that West and/or Wells know about Bryant and can use to paint him in a negative light, there’s a good chance that, if the litigation continues, they eventually will.
