Legal News

So What?s the Deal With this La Russa-Twitter ?Settlement??

By Chris Herring

So have Tony La Russa and Twitter reached a settlement or not? As of now, it would appear that the lawsuit is still on, which contradicts what we wrote earlier today.

For now, the quick backstory. Last month, in response to a made-up Twitter profile of La Russa, the St. Louis Cardinals manager filed what appeared to be the first celebrity lawsuit against the 32-million-user site.

On Friday, La Russa told reporters that the case had “been settled.” But over the weekend, Twitter rebuffed La Russa’s claim, saying the suit had not settled, and reasserting that its position “will be upheld in a court that will ultimately dismiss Mr. La Russa’s lawsuit.”

We lobbed a call to La Russa’s attorney, Greg McCoy, on Monday to try to get some clarification. He told us that he was “surprised” to hear Twitter’s claim that no settlement was reached. “I thought we’d reached one,” said McCoy, adding that he and Twitter’s legal representation had verbally agreed to settle last Friday. Just hours after that tentative agreement, McCoy said, La Russa told reporters of the settlement.

Asked for comment, a Twitter representative referred the Law Blog back to the site’s statement, which said a settlement had not been reached.

McCoy said he hasn’t spoken to La Russa since Friday and wasn’t sure whether the coach knew of Twitter’s decision not to settle. He said if he doesn’t hear from Twitter by Wednesday that he’ll call the site’s legal team to see where things stand.

“I guess until you have a deal in writing, you don’t really have a deal,” McCoy said.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on June 08, 2009 (boomark / email).