Attorney Stephen P. New discusses Kevin Kelly and The Tate Twins filing a lawsuit against AEW.
Kevin Kelly and The Tate Twins (Brandon and Brent Tate) have brought a lawsuit against AEW, and defamation claims are part of the case, as Kelly claims that Ian Riccaboni defamed him, while the Tate Twins claim that Tony Khan defamed them. Attorney Stephen P. New is representing the plaintiffs in the case.
Speaking on House of Kayfabe, Stephen P. New discussed the lawsuit. He said that they filed the putative class action complaint. He noted that there were other counts as well, including declaratory judgment, asking to have the contracts that the plaintiffs signed deemed null and void, the arbitration clauses, the no-compete clauses, and a class action, asking the court to certify a class that all current and former AEW talent are deemed as employees and not independent contractors. New also stated that there were some individual counts for Kelly and the Tate Twins.
When asked about the defamation claims against Ian Riccaboni, New highlighted how the claim stemmed from Riccaboni's comments about how Kelly enjoyed the film "Sound of Freedom," and Kelly felt like he was treated differently after that.
“The defamation claim against Ian Riccaboni stems from Kevin Kelly enjoying the movie ‘Sound of Freedom,’ and he tweeted some about ‘Sound of Freedom’. Kevin says that movie moved him and that he liked it, and not long after that, Riccaboni, on Discord and others, starts saying things that, ‘Well, you must be a QAnon conspiracist if you believe that kind of thing,’ and what have you. It seemed to Kevin Kelly like his relationship deteriorated with AEW after this exchange with Riccaboni. Now, we only know Kevin’s side of this right now. The reason for the discovery process is to question witnesses and to request documents and that kind of thing. That’s the only way that the truth is arrived at, is to go through the discovery process. You request emails, you request texts, you request social media platform information, posting and messaging and that kind of thing, to get at whether or not someone meant to hurt someone. Was there reason, with nine members of the announce team, that Riccaboni was engaging in the Klingon method of advancement where you kill off your rivals? We don’t know the answers to any of those questions just yet. The only thing I can say is that Kelly perceived being treated differently by AEW, by HR, by the people in the home office, after this dust-up with Riccaboni, and then resulting in that first week of March, being let go by AEW, only about nine months into a three-year long contract," New said.
New was then asked about the claim against Tony Khan, and he emphasized how Khan saying that the Tate Twins no-showed events had been harmful to their careers. He also expressed his confidence that they would be "fine" with both counts.
"Tony Khan, after the Ring of Honor Supercard [of Honor], said of the Tate Twins that they were habitual no-shows, and that that was the reason why they were being let go. You could imagine, if somebody else says about the Tate Twins, ‘Oh, they’re unreliable,’ that doesn’t carry the weight that the owner of the company at a media scrum, saying, ‘These guys are habitual no-shows to our shows,’ a statement which is knowingly false. Tony Khan knew that that statement was false when he made it. He made it anyway, and the Tates have really suffered since then. So that’s why we believe that that is defamatory. Now, interestingly, AEW’s official position had changed on the Tates. ‘It was due to financial hardship. We’re laying some people off. We’re letting some people go.’ Which is it? Is it financial hardship, or was it because the Tates were habitual no-shows. Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. So if Ian Riccaboni can prove that Kevin Kelly is a QAnon nut, then that is truth as an absolute defense to that claim of defamation. If Tony Khan can prove that the Tates were habitual no-shows and that the travel issues weren’t the fault of his own people, Nashville is not Knoxville, folks. They’re two totally different cities. One’s in east Tennessee, the other’s in central Tennessee. So I think we’ll be fine on both those defamation counts," New said.
Later in the interview, New was asked about how the case would be argued in court. He explained that social media comments about Kelly, following Riccaboni’s comments, could be used by experts. New also detailed how a scientific method was involved.
"Just look at some of the things said about Kevin Kelly today in response to this lawsuit. He was called a conspiracy theorist, a QAnon quack, just by virtue of the fact of him being trending on Twitter and being the headline in this lawsuit, the named plaintiff in this lawsuit. People still believe that stuff. One of the things that makes the defamation claim a little tougher, is it actual malice? There can probably be a pretty straight-faced argument that these plaintiffs are public figures, they wrestle on national television, cable television, so they can at least make that straight-faced argument because in addition to the four things that you have to prove with defamation, about the publication and the knowing and false statement and making it nonetheless, in the case of a public figure, you have to show that the act was done with actual malice, and that’s where Riccaboni, trying to knife a competitor in the back for an announcing job, we might just be able to get there on that," New said.
When asked to clarify, New explained that his reputation would find tweets in the wake of filing that helped their case.
"Yup, yes. When my reputation expert finds the tweets in the wake of the filing of this lawsuit, yeah, he’ll be able to say, ‘See here?’ People believed a lot of what Riccaboni was saying [in the] fall of 2023 because people are still talking about it in the fall of 2024. The tweets themselves would not be [used as evidence], but the rules of evidence say that experts can rely on things that aren’t in and of themselves admissible, so long as there’s a scientific basis for it. That’s part of the process of getting that expert through the door so that that expert can say certain things like, ‘See here, I’ve analyzed the number of shares on social media with this person’s name, and it has a negative connotation to it.’ 87% of what you read on the Internet about that person since someone said the allegedly defamatory thing has been negative, so there is a scientific method to it that’s employed by the experts. It’s not just me standing up there with a flip board of, Beavis-and-Butthead-rock-number-one at Twitter.com or whatever. @BeavisandButtheadrock on Twitter. It’s not just me standing up there and saying that or showing the tweets. There has to be some scientific method to the reputation expert opining about that," New said.
New later responded to Jim Ross, who said that the lawsuit was frivolous. New claimed that Ross was part of the problem due to his work as the Head of Talent Relations in WWE. He also claimed that Ross was being paid to do nothing in AEW.
“I need to make a response. JR, Jim Ross, called this lawsuit frivolous. Well, let me tell you something, boola-boola, this is not a frivolous lawsuit. You’re part of the problem. You, Jim Ross, are part of the problem because you fed the guys in WWE as Talent Relations these crap contracts for a quarter of a century. You told these guys that it was the take-it-or-leave-it deal, and that they needed to sign these crap contracts that were contracts of adhesion, that they should have never signed, or they should have lined the arbitration provisions out of. So I’m not shocked in the least that you go on Conrad Thompson’s podcast and you say that this is a frivolous lawsuit. I might lose it, by ‘bah gawd’ it’s not frivolous, I can tell you that. Tony Khan’s paid JR a lot of money to do nothing for about five years now. If I were Jim Ross and I were living at Jacksonville Beach and making a bunch of money to not do much at all, I’d probably come out and call Stephen P. New’s lawsuit also. Everybody’s got a price," Ross said.
Kevin Kelly recently commented on the lawsuit. Click here to see what he had to say.
AEW issued a statement on the lawsuit. More information is available here.
Fightful will continue to monitor the lawsuit and provide more information as it becomes available.
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