Florida State files motion for partial summary judgement in ACC lawsuit

Florida State filed a motion for partial summary judgment in its lawsuit against the ACC earlier this week in Leon County Court, court documents show.

In a 574-page filing submitted to the court on Tuesday, the Seminoles’ attorneys challenge that the ACC has misinterpreted its 2016 amended Grant of Rights, the enforceability of the league’s liquidated damages and claims the ACC has breached its constitution.

“The recently-produced 2016 ESPN agreements expose that the ACC has no rights to FSU home games played after it leaves the conference,” the filing’s preliminary statement reads. “Because the 2016 ESPN agreements exclude such games, ‘rights’ to them were never ‘necessary’ for the ACC ‘to perform’ its ‘contractual obligations’ to ESPN ‘expressly set forth in the ESPN agreements;’ thus rights to those games were never granted to the ACC under the 2016 Amended Grant of Rights.”

The decision to file for a partial summary judgment comes after the ACC and Florida State met for mediation in August but could not resolve the ongoing legal dispute. Florida State is seeking to leave the ACC without paying an exit fee and the cost of buying out its remaining media rights. Attorneys previously estimated it could cost upwards of $500 million to buy out its rights back and leave the ACC.

Documents released this summer confirmed that ESPN can end the ACC’s media rights deal in 2027. The document cites the need for written notice to the ACC no later than two years after the launch date of the ACC-ESPN Network. The ACC and ESPN launched the ACC Network in 2019.

Florida State claims ACC commissioner Jim Phillips failed to obtain the required vote in amending the ESPN Tier 1 agreement and breached the league’s constitution. The Seminoles also argue that the ACC has repeatedly failed to provide the school with agendas for this year, therefore breaching the league’s constitution.

Most of the arguments laid out against the ACC in the motion have been included in past complaints and filings by Florida State. The filing also includes pages of redactions.

“We underwent court-ordered mediation with the ACC, and we continue to have an open dialogue with the ACC, and all of that is good,” Florida State President Richard McCullough said Friday to the school’s Board of Trustees.

In its conclusion in the legal filing, Florida State’s attorneys laid out the crux of its decision to submit a motion for preliminary judgment.

“Postponing the resolution of this question only compounds the expense and travesty,” the motion states. “Further, the ACC’s multiple breaches of FSU’s bedrock Constitutional contractual rights in three different Articles are all material and relieve FSU from any further duty to perform thereunder”