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January 02, 2009
Elliott Sadler Files Notice That he May Sue for Breach of Contract
Paperwork was filed today by Elliott Sadler's attorney indicating that he may sue Gillett-Evernham Motorsports for breach of contract as a result of their decision to replace him in the #19 with A.J. Allmendinger in spite of the fact that two years remained on a contract extension that Sadler had signed with GEM during the 2008 season. Elliott has until January 20 to decide whether he'll actually sue for damages or not and I would assume the final decision will be made based on what GEM does for him between now and then. It may be that GEM is hesitating on buying out the last two years of his contract or isn't offering as much money as Elliott thinks he's entitled to. Filing notice to sue sends a message to GEM that Elliott is very serious about getting what he thinks is owed to him.
I say good for Elliott. It used to be frowned upon for a driver to sue when they were released by a team even if they thought they were owed money to the point where some said that teams wouldn't give a ride to a driver who threated to sue but those days are over. Now if a driver isn't happy with the way they're released or feel they're owed money they don't hesitate to sue and I can't blame them. More and more it seems that contracts don't mean much - there are so many "out" clauses in contracts that allow drivers, teams and sponsors to part ways with each other very easily. Those "out" clauses are in place to protect each party in case things don't work out and I think drivers, teams and sponsors are entitled to make use of the "out" clauses as they feel necessary. However, I also think that the drivers need to be able to stand up for themselves, particularly when they feel that they're owed money or otherwise been done wrong.
There's been a lot of conflicting information circulating as to when Elliott found out that he was getting released. While Elliott was apparently aware that the team was considering making a change, he didn't find out there were actual negotiations underway between GEM and A.J. until he got phone calls from people last Tuesday, just before Christmas, asking about media reports to that effect. GEM has every right to make the decisions they feel are necessary to improve the performance of their teams however I also think they owe it to Elliott to have enough respect for him to inform him when the decision was made to replace him so that he found out from them and not from others. As I said in another entry, the timing is horrible as well - maybe they wanted to be sure that they could come to an agreement with A.J. or were hoping to break the news to Elliott after the holidays but knowing the way the rumor mill works in this sport and how hard it is to keep anything a secret, being up-front with Elliott about what was going on would have been a wise course of action.
I would guess that Elliott and GEM will negotiate an agreement that will result in Elliott being paid a generous amount of money to buyout the last two years of his contract and Elliott won't end up suing. An ugly lawsuit will only result in more negative publicity for GEM and there's no telling what might be revealed in a lawsuit that neither GEM nor Elliott wants known publically.
Posted by silverdsl at January 2, 2009 06:34 PM
Comments
This will never see the court room. Sadler doesn't want to 'open his financial books' and GEM doesn't want to be exposed for working behind the scenes to replace Sadler. (Even though this is precisely what Sadler and Evernham did in '06 to get Sadler the 19 ride in the first place)
Plain and simple, this is posturing by a fired driver in order to gain some dollars. Mayfield did the same thing when he was fired and it probably got him a few extra dollars.
Posted by: okla21fan at January 2, 2009 09:57 PM