Florida State Board of Trustees approves lawsuit against ACC

This seems unreasonable.  I would think that would be available to all member schools without a second thought...

I believe they have seen it. But they cannot make a copy. They have to travel to wherever the ACC offices are to see it!! It seems to be treated the same way as the Declaration of Independence!

My sense as a lawyer:

• The "can't see the contract except in person" is very weird.  I've never heard of that happening to contracts that you are party to.  I know that happens with all kinds of confidential documents, but that's wild.
• The withdrawal penalty argument could be very strong.  Basically in the US the fee for breaking a contract is just the economic damages it causes the other person.  You can't have a "penalty" that goes above that.
• Public policy is a weak argument.  That's just "don't enforce this very mean contract," which very rarely works.  FSU was a sophisticated party that signed the GoR of its own free will, which is usually all it takes to defeat this.
• "Restraint on trade" sounds unusual, that's an antitrust-ish argument.  No idea how it comes out but it doesn't seem like the ACC holds a monopoly on football and used it to harm FSU.
• The ACC shouldn't have a fiduciary duty to FSU - that's not how fiduciary duties work.  (A fiduciary duty is basically a duty of total loyalty - but it's essentially impossible to satisfy fiduciary duties to multiple parties with divergent interests, like FSU and all the other conference members.)
• The contract breach claims may have merit, but the remedy for breach of a contract isn't always cancellation.

What's more interesting to me is that they're pressing seven claims.  That's a lot; usually people who are confident in their arguments pick the 2-3 strongest ones and hammer them; 7 arguments smells like "spaghetti at the wall."

There's a long timeline here if this case is litigated - maybe 18 months from filing to get a first decision (but it could be longer), another year for an appeal, and then again when they appeal to the Supreme Court (which may or may not accept, but it'll be 4-5 months while they decide, probably).  They could settle at any time during this process.

As the guy who said yesterday that FSU looked bad for constantly saying they'd do something about the ACC without doing anything, kudos to them for giving it a shot.

Gosh, and here I thought FSU vetted the GoR in advance, sought full input from its lawyers, was provided full opportunity to offer alternative language / clauses,  and at the conclusion of this process, its Board of Trustees authorized its signature and execution.

Except the Board went out of their way this has nothing to do with the cfp, so that $1M isn’t earmarked for this suit

There's only so much you can spend on this kind of litigation.  Maybe $10, $15 mm?  You know, a lot of money, but hardly earthshattering for the ACC.

The helpful comparison here is LIV v. PGA, where LIV was going to sue PGA for everything, all the time - defamation, antitrust, unfair competition, etc, etc, etc, and had Saudi Arabian oil money behind it.  You can run an infinite-money litigation campaign to beat the other side to death, but a narrow contract dispute isn't the way to go.

$1KK is a lot of cash, but not unlimited funds.  High priced counsel (I’m a lawyer) will burn through the $1KK pretty quickly — w/in a 2-3 months, tops.  Legal work for a high value client is very expensive when you’ve got a team grinding, scorched earth style.  

butter knife, hell.....Michigan adopted the fetal position.

So I think you're right and you're wrong.  True, Partridge (and the booster funding Conor - I don't get why that matters, but people talk about it like it does) had nothing to do with Michigan's TRO case, which just asked if Harbaugh's suspension right then complied with the bylaws.  Probably not.  But settlements aren't just about the case in court, they're about the whole deal you get.

Those things may have convinced M that a B1G investigation, whenever it finished, might lead to a bigger penalty, so resolving it all for three games was worth it.  Also, and not for nothing, getting investigators out of your hair is maybe goal #1 as a criminal defense attorney (which I'm not, FWIW).  People do stupid shit when they know they're investigated (Partridge) and dealing with an investigation takes real people (not lawyers) a lot of time and effort.

I truly believe the distraction issue for the players started to have a real impact when the Partridge issue came up and the Uncle T (which has been debunked, otherwise Thamel would still be beating the drum) payola scheme for CS happened the week of the Maryland game. It's normal to look a bit off the week after a big game (at PSU) and a week before The Game. 

I can recall some distractions at work, along with rumors and fear of what's next, started having an impact on attitudes, how people acted toward each other, workplace safety (a lot of near misses in a manufacturing plant) - we had to basically put some issues and concerns that people wanted to elevate to leadership on the backburner for another day. I think the same thing happened with our program.

What is amazing is that this effort to smear the program, coach, players, etc. was so carefully planned and launched to near-perfection. A lot of "evidence" (Connor's budget and travel schedule of the vast nation, etc.) was ready to be released at the desired moment. First, the MSU game week and the threat to skip the game for "safety" reasons. At the same time, rumors of JH signing an extension. Then later, the SEC chimes in with CS's purchase of SEC title game tickets. Then the publicity from the PU coach bogus handshake. While the Partridge thing was likely timed based on his actual "transgressions" the Uncle T thing was clearly planned for a launch IF UM filed a lawsuit.

All of this conspiracy and we STILL WON every game. The loser from this whole story was Kyle McCord (scapegoat for the Ohio loss to UM) and Ryan Day who is in win-or-die mode next year. 38 and 0 vs all B1G but 1-3 vs. UM.