Despite that admonishment, Kyros has yet to let himself be counted out, promising to appeal Monday’s ruling tossing his 53-plaintiff-strong class action claim [actually 60 wrestlers including the families with wrestlers diagnosed with CTE and case is not a class action], as noted by affiliate publication the Connecticut Law Tribune.
In dismissing the suit, Bryant wrote that Kyros repeatedly made false allegations; brought claims that were time-barred; and failed to provide evidence that the WWE knew and hid the risk of brain injury from wrestlers like Joseph “Road Warrior Animal” Laurinaitis. Laurinaitis was the named plaintiff in the sixth and last remaining concussion suit against the WWE.
“Attorney Kyros’ decision to assert frivolous claims has required the court to waste considerable judicial resources sifting through three unreasonably long complaints filed in the Laurinaitis action, with the vague hope that some claim, buried within a mountain of extraneous information, might have merit,” Bryant wrote.
Kyros said in an interview Wednesday that he had never been part of a case that involved such vitriol between the parties. But he said he would appeal the ruling.
“This is by far the most rough-and-tumble lawsuit that anyone I know has ever been involved in,” said Kyros, whose law firm has offices outside Boston, in South Florida and Athens, Greece. “It’s not a normal scenario.”
He was less reserved in a post on his website directed toward his clients. Kyros attacked the decision as “flimsy,” “very poorly reasoned” and “bizarre.” The ruling, Kyros wrote, “is mostly a personal attack on your advocate and not on you!”
McDevitt said in an interview that Kyros ought to be disbarred for what the Pittsburgh-based litigator called “unethical” behavior in the case.
“People like that who bring the judge into disrepute just because they lost the case and were sanctioned because of their misconduct, I don’t think they do have a place in the bar,” McDevitt said. “His comments about the judge are wildly inappropriate and regrettable and he shouldn’t be doing it. He called her reasoning flimsy. [He] accused her of ignoring facts that there were murders and suicides. She didn’t do any such thing. That’s just rotten to do.” [Obviously mischaracterizes comments about the ruling in Typical WWE style. I have profound respect for the process. Part of that process is standing up for your clients and criticizing injustice, that’s what lawyers and advocates do . Remember Mr. McDevitt’s behavior and outbursts to Congressional Subcommittee questioning Vince McMahon: “We whipped the governments ass without putting a witness on.” and calling their questioning “Bullshit.”]
Bryant found that most of the 53 [60] ex-wrestlers’ tort claims were time-barred, as Connecticut law allows three years from the incident to bring a tort claim. No wrestler in the suit claimed an injury inside the ropes of a WWE ring since 2011. Some of the wrestlers’ alleged injuries, like those of the late Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka, occurred as early as or earlier than 1995 [Actually Judge noted 1996].
“That argument is pled in the NFL case, the NHL [case] that’s pending and the NCAA case that was settled,” Kyros said. “This is not a novel theory.”
In addition to failing to plead relevant facts, Bryant said Kyros’ suit made a series of errors as portions of it appeared to be copied from a National Football League concussion case, down to using NFL players’ names and referencing the Pittsburgh Steelers. Kyros said these were mere “typographical errors.” [Court painstakingly analyzed this complex issue and concluded that “Mike Webster was a football player, not a wrestler, and that the Steelers are an NFL team unaffiliated with the WWE.” This was because “WWE” was accidentally placed in a sentence that should have used the letters “NFL.” This took the courts time and is part of an Order used to render an opinion that the wrestlers have no legal claims. The section was factual background about Dr. Omalu’s identification of CTE and yes the lawyers representing 60 wrestlers and who have worked with Dr. Omalu on getting many wrestlers diagnosed with CTE knew then and know now that the Steelers are an NFL team and that Mike Webster was not WWE talent. I just wanted to make that clear. Yes we also were able to locate the typo or “patently false allegation” and correct it. The Courts and Attorneys should have shifted from this and discussed issues like the actual facts of the case. The takeaway is tragic: because instead of talking about wrestlers dying of CTE which is what the case is about, we are wasting time arguing about nonsense.]
“The edifice on which the narrative of my supposed incompetence is built is inaccurate,” he said.
“We educate the talent about the importance of reporting head injuries and not getting back into the ring until it’s resolved,” McDevitt said. Kyros’ “allegations of fraud were ones that pissed us off frankly, because they had no basis in fact and never did have basis in fact.”Following Monday’s order, McDevitt said the WWE currently faces no concussion-related suits. He said the company began to educate its wrestlers on the seriousness of brain injuries following a 2007 incident when retired WWE star Chris Benoit murdered his family and committed suicide. [Note: Interesting professional language here. To be clear a stated theory of the lawsuit is WWE knew about head injuries and safety issues before Chris Benoit. Additionally the lawsuit isn’t about current talent concussion protocols, Mr. McDeviit conflates the two issues, it is about former talent at risk for CTE and long term injuries.]
McDevitt has represented the WWE and its CEO, Vince McMahon, for roughly 30 years. In that time, McDevitt said he has litigated on the Stamford, Connecticut-based company’s behalf against some of the best lawyers in the world, ranging from partners at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to federal prosecutors in New York.
“This guy stands alone,” McDevitt said in regard to Kyros. “I’ve never seen anybody that engages in the kind of conduct that he does.”
As for Bryant, this is not the first time she has been a controversial figure. The American Bar Association initially graded her as “not qualified” for her appointment to the federal bench in 2006, filing a report with biting criticism of her competence as a state judge. That failing grade, however, was reversed in 2007 when President George W. Bush nominated her again for the federal bench.