Following up on a report from earlier this month on AEW’s motion to seal Ryan Nemeth’s wrestler contracts and my related opposition to that motion: AEW on Tuesday asked the court to allow the company to file a reply.
Read: AEW’s Motion for Leave to File a Reply in Support of Renewed Motion to File Under Seal
This means they’re asking for permission from the judge to submit another filing arguing against my earlier opposition filing, which appeared on the docket last week.
In litigation like this (”motion practice”), often there’s first a motion (like AEW’s) then someone might file an opposition to the motion (like I did), and then sometimes the person who filed the motion will file a reply. In this circumstance, permission from the court is required first before filing a reply, so that’s what they asked the court for on Tuesday.
(To avoid any doubt, this report is meant to be a plain factual summary of what AEW’s counsel wrote in Tuesday’s motion. I’m refraining here from arguing against any of what they wrote, but that shouldn’t be misunderstood as an acceptance of any of AEW’s arguments.)
Attorneys for AEW and Tony Khan wrote that they want to file a seven-page reply (which is the maximum limit allowed) to “address Thurston’s mischaracterizations and new arguments raised.”
AEW argues they should be allowed a reply because it would allow the Court to sort through “Thurston’s mischaracterizations, misguided arguments, and attempts to confuse the issues regarding what [AEW and Khan are] asking the Court to decide in this case.”
Among other reasons, AEW says I have advanced “a new theory” that the redacted parts of Nemeth’s contracts “must be public because they bear on worker-classification tests under California law.” AEW’s attorneys say a reply would allow them to explain why that’s not the case.
They add that I’ve attempted to “confuse the scope of what the Court must decide on the Petition.”
They point to issues they say appeared for the first time in my opposition. If the court accepts this, it would help them meet the legal standard for allowing a reply that they cite.
AEW also wants to address the case law that they cited in their motion to seal the contracts. AEW referenced a number of cases in which other motions to seal were granted.
I argued that those cases are different and can’t help them because in each of them the motion was either accompanied by sworn statements supporting the party that wanted the seal or they involved motions to seal that weren’t opposed by anyone. I argued that AEW’s motion to seal is neither: it includes no sworn statement, such as an affidavit from an AEW executive, attesting to the harm AEW says unsealing would cause, and it is opposed, by me.
“A reply would address and further support [AEW’s] position on these points,” they wrote.
If the court allows the reply, AEW proposed submitting their filing 14 days after the court grants the request.
Read (same link as above): AEW’s Motion for Leave to File a Reply in Support of Renewed Motion to File Under Seal
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