Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
April 16, 2008
Suit Settled

ESPN and Harold Reynolds settled their lawsuit, although we don't know what terms were reached. I hope Harold received a nice pay day.

Update: Here's more from ESPN.

Reynolds told USA Today on Tuesday: "My family and I are very happy to have achieved an amicable settlement with ESPN. I feel my goals were satisfied, and I look forward now to concentrating on the game I love.''

ESPN said they settled for a fraction of what Reynolds was asking.


Posted by David Pinto at 08:35 AM | News Media | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Who knows what the deal really was. I can well believe that ESPN wanted to avoid legal fees, and maybe they did settle for less than what the lawyers would have cost.

Posted by: Casey Abell at April 16, 2008 08:53 AM

I hope Harold received a nice pay day.

Wasn't he fired for sexual harrassment? What're you, like all for it?

Posted by: Bandit at April 16, 2008 08:56 AM

I know Harold well. I don't think the charge was valid.

Posted by: David Pinto at April 16, 2008 09:12 AM

Hugging someone at a chain restaurant? I don't know Harold Reynolds nor do I know the specifics of the case, but the charge never smelled very good. The settlement's a "clue."

Posted by: Kent at April 16, 2008 09:40 AM

about the laywer fees, espn/abc/disney have in house people who are paid either way. it's just one of those things that doesn't go to trial about 97% of the time.

Posted by: Tim at April 16, 2008 10:26 AM

Without knowing any of the financial details, it's all speculation on our part. But ESPN didn't dial back the rhetoric in its statement. "Our confidence in both the appropriateness of our action and our legal position never wavered."

Hm, that's waving the red flag at the bull. Basically they're saying Reynolds is guilty as charged and should have been fired. These are not exactly conciliatory comments designed to smooth over bad feelings. The "fraction of his demands" remark isn't sweet balm, either.

Of course, these lawsuits are usually settled before trial. And ESPN gets dinged for legal expenses even if they use internal corporate counsel. If ESPN really managed to squeeze the settlement down to negligible size, it made all the sense in the world for them to settle.

Posted by: Casey Abell at April 16, 2008 10:56 AM

Also, 4 million is a fraction of 5 million

Posted by: Phillip Kingsley at April 16, 2008 11:58 AM

Usually in these cases both sides say they are vindicated. Doesn't mean squat.

Posted by: rbj at April 16, 2008 12:21 PM

Sure looks like the ESPN people think Reynolds got exactly what he deserved when he was fired. It would have been easy to put out a nothing statement that we're moving on, blah blah.

Instead the network went out of its way to emphasize that, in its opinion, Reynolds' firing was appropriate and the settlement was only to avoid legal costs that would have been larger.

I have no idea who's right in this case bacause I don't know any of the facts. But I don't expect Harold Reynolds to show up on ESPN in this millenium.

Posted by: Casey abell at April 16, 2008 01:52 PM

Honestly, I have no idea how to call this one. I trust David's judgment enough to credit his assessment of Reynolds' character (plus...yeah, I'll admit I always liked him on BBTN), and I've seen enough false accusations of sexual harrassment in my day to not automatically credit such accusations the way I once did.

But ESPN's rhetoric in this case is so uncompromising and scorched-earth that it does make me wonder whether something is going on. It's hard to understand their language as indicative of any sort of legal strategy. Apparently there are some real hard feelings under the surface of this suit. The sort of stuff that maybe only David will one day hear about (since he's a friend of Harold's) but we'll be left speculating about.

Oh well. I liked Reynolds a lot. Absent any strong reason to lean one way or another, I give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was railroaded, in which case congrats to him for getting his due.

Posted by: Jeff B. at April 16, 2008 02:25 PM

Large institutions always circle the wagons and try to crush a whistelblower or one deemed an offender with no concern for the law.

Disney is acting no differently than what MSG tried to do in their harassment suit. The people who can hire the most lawyers either win or cause the individual who has to pay for an attorney to experience economic pain via their legal bills and make them radioactive to hire.

Since it never went to trial, we will never know the facts in this case. But it appears to me that the continual ESPN frat boy actions of other hosts contributed more to Reynolds punishment than any actual crime.

Dana Jacobsen still has her job?

Posted by: rmt at April 16, 2008 05:39 PM

I never much liked Reynolds' bland (at best) work on ESPN, and I regard David Pinto's general testimonial as irrelevant to this particular sexual harassment case. So I may be a little biased against Reynolds.

But neither do I regard ESPN's language in this case as the usual wagon-circling. Again, a nothing statement about moving on is what I would have expected. Instead the network reemphasized that they think Reynolds got a very deserved pink slip.

Who knows? Not me, that's for sure. But Reynolds better hope that his mlb.com gig works out, because he's not working for ESPN again any time soon.

Posted by: Casey Abell at April 17, 2008 09:14 AM
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