When couples separate, it is often a battle to see who can get what. However, in an unusual family law case, both the husband and the wife want the wife to get the couple’s most high-profile asset. However, a major national organization does not want that to happen and is actively opposing it. The national organization is the NBA. The asset is the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team.
The NBA doesn’t want the couple, Donald Sterling and Shelly Sterling, to continue owning the team. The basis for pursuing an end to the couple’s ownership is the racial remarks attributed to Donald Sterling, which caused outrage across the country. However, Sterling contends that if he isn’t allowed to retain ownership of the team, his wife should retain her interest in it in a divorce.
He says that the comments he made were his fault, not hers. He doesn’t want her to be penalized for a situation he says she had nothing to do with. How ownership of the team will be affected is an integral part of the Sterling’s divorce right now, with speculation that an expedited divorce could result in Mrs. Sterling becoming full owner of the Los Angeles Clippers. That might cast doubt on the NBA’s ability to vote her out of ownership as well as her husband, if it is accepted that any violations of the NBA Constitution were committed by him alone.
These issues make the Sterling’s battle with the NBA part of their divorce. While this is an unusual family law case, most do involve the division of some assets. Anyone wrestling with the division of marital property can get excellent advice about how to approach this from a capable attorney.
Source: The Wire, “Could a Sterling Divorce Allow Shelly Sterling to Keep the Clippers?” Polly Mosendz, May. 15, 2014
