In yet another attempt to make some more cash and make everyone else's life difficult, Donald Sterling has filed another lawsuit against his wife and the NBA, accusing them of defrauding him out of the Clippers and demanding that the sale of the team be blocked.
The suit, filed yesterday in Los Angeles Superior Court, names Shelly Sterling, Adam Silver, and the NBA, and accuses them of fraud, breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, and a slew of other violations.
He also charged that the defendants acted with "complete and utter disregard" for his "psychological, financial, and emotional attachment to a team he owned for 33 years, which resulted in the infliction of severe emotional distress."
This latest lawsuit hinges on technicalities and disputed timelines. It argues that LAC Basketball Club Inc. owned the Clippers, not the Sterling Family Trust, and since Donald Sterling is the only shareholder in LAC, it wasn't Shelly Sterling's to sell. But that would require a judge to rule that Sterling's attempt to transfer the team from the Family Trust to LAC on June 9 was valid—two weeks earlier, Sterling had been declared mentally incapacitated, stripping him of decision-making on behalf of the Family Trust.
Even Sterling's team may not believe he has a chance of winning any of the currently pending suits. Sterling met with Steve Ballmer on Monday, and the two reportedly discussed the possibility of a settlement to make the suits go away and smooth the team's sale. This seems like a likely outcome. Nobody, not Ballmer and not the NBA, seems concerned that Donald Sterling will still own the team come next season. This is probably going to end the only way it was ever going to: with Donald Sterling getting paid to go away.