In Charles Oakley’s long-running legal battle with Madison Square Garden Networks over his desk being removed from his chair at a Knicks activity in February 2017, a federal prosecutor in New York last Thursday issued a combined set of decisions. A debate that began soon after Donald Trump became the 45th leader could continue to exist properly into Trump’s 47th president’s reign unless the parties reach a resolution are revealed by the decisions.
MSG argued that James Dolan should be deposed only after MSG employees are removed, and U.S. District Judge Richard J. Sullivan supported that need. Sullivan agreed with MSG that having Dolan come past may help to “narrow the opportunity” of Dolan’s testimony. According to the judge, MSG people” who were immediately involved in Oakley’s treatment and had the knowledge most important to determining whether ridiculous force was used against Oakley” should come first.

The fact that MSG employees have n’t yet been deposed is partly a reflection of the litigation’s turbulent path. The situation has already been dropped half at the trial stage, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has reinstated it twice, resulting in large three for the Southern District of New York. Important witness statements and other matters that could further stall the situation are likewise disputed. In the current edition of the dispute, Oakley’s legal case is related to assault and battery statements stemming from his expulsion.
Sullivan backed MSG’s ask that Dolan not be subject to any deposition, despite the fact that he agreed Dolan may be deposed following his arrest.
The prosecutor explained that Oakley’s assault and battery says “ultimately boil down to two factors”. The first is how much power MSG workers used to reduce Oakley from the Garden, and the second is whether or not that army “was honestly reasonable under the circumstances.”
Oakley thinks Dolan gave instructions to the staff to take him away. According to Sullivan, Dolan’s possible testimony is important because he would have to answer questions under oath about whether he had instructed the security guards to press Oakley and use excessive force. Sullivan wrote that Dolan’s testimony “would support the fair assumption that the guards followed Dolan’s instructions and would therefore make it more likely that the guards actually shoved him” if he had been given the training to use pressure.
Dolan’s testimony, according to Sullivan, raises a crucial issue: whether the safety soldiers “only resorted to power after Oakley actually escalated the situation.” Oakley’s situation may be hampered by a discovering that he instigated the encounter, since, Sullivan explained, “it might have been acceptable for the security troops to apply greater force if Oakley was behaving violently”.

The judge dissented, in part, from the idea that Dolan should be exempt from deposition because of the apex-witness doctrine. High-ranking executives are occasionally exempt from depositions because they lack intimate knowledge of important facts, as Sportico detailed in September when Sullivan rejected MSG’s earlier attempt to invoke this doctrine. Dolan, according to Sullivan’s most recent ruling, “is not the typical apex witness who sits in the knowledge or involvement in the underlying conduct.”
Instead, Dolan literally “had a courtside seat to the action” and is accused of being involved in the incident. ” The apex doctrine is plainly inapplicable here”, Sullivan insisted.
Additionally, Sullivan disputed Oakley’s claim that he is merely attempting to depose Dolan in order to harass him. According to MSG, there have been text messages sent to Oakley from former players urging the former player to pursue Dolan, with one text saying Oakley should” sue the]expletive ] out of Dolan. Another text encouraged Oakley to use the discovery process to inflict a “public relations, social media, ]and ] social responsibility toll”. MSG might be more prone to cut a deal given the negative impact of the case. Because there is no evidence Oakley responded to or otherwise supported the texts, Sullivan found no evidence that this evidence indicates Oakley’s intention to harass.
” We are pleased that the Court denied Dolan’s latest attempt to be excused from deposition in this case”, Wigdor Law partner Valdi Licul, who is one of Oakley’s attorneys, told Sportico in a statement.
In September, the two sides told Sullivan their “present best estimate” was that a trial would take a couple of weeks. Although the parties ‘ recent disagreement over discovery suggests that the case has a long way to go, the judge at the time indicated there would be a post-discovery conference on March 4, 2025.