The court ruled in favor of Madison Square Garden in the ongoing dispute between MSG and Charles Oakley, ruling that Oakley had not established any assault during the arrest that took place following Oakley’s attendance of the game in 2017.
According to ESPN, Oakley was handcuffed and taken into custody following an encounter with security while he was seated near owner James Dolan during a game of the Los Angeles Clippers. Oakley filed multiple claims against MSG which were thrown out in February 2020. Upon appeal, only the assault and battery claim stayed against MSG.
However, in his decision, Richard J. Sullivan, the judge for the Southern District of New York, found Oakley “has failed to produce any evidence to support his claim that he was assaulted by MSG security guards.”
For more than nine years, Mr. Oakley’s lawyers have pursued claims they knew were false. Those claims have now been dismissed by the Court in their entirety — for the third time,” MSG said in a statement. “We are pursuing legal action against Douglas Wigdor, and his unscrupulous law firm, to hold them accountable for years of frivolous litigation and their blatant abuse of the judicial system.”
A favorite forward for the Knicks team in the 1990s, Oakley is one of the only former players to stay away from Madison Square Garden as the Knicks have made their most recent playoff appearances, including winning the NBA title this year.
While Oakley’s banishment from the game was shocking, Sullivan decided that Oakley could not prove that the expulsion was accomplished using excessive force.
“Ample evidence — including videos from multiple angles and the unanimous testimony of every witness (even, to some extent, Oakley himself) — shows that Oakley had a reasonable opportunity to depart the Garden, that he instead resorted to physical violence, and that he was never pushed to the ground,” Sullivan wrote.
Further, the judge said, “No reasonable jury could find that Oakley reasonably feared that he was in danger of being physically harmed inappropriately — or even that MSG wanted to inspire that fear.”
Wigdor is still hoping for a jury decision.
