Buccaneers trade lawsuits with their fans

If Alice ever came back from Wonderland and wanted to try another hole where the top was bottom and the bottom was top and the whole thing was spinning round, she could buy a season ticket to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers lawsuits, not the football games, and feel right at home.

The Bucs have sued a couple of their season ticket owners who had previously sued them. Let me repeat that, for this is the job of the Mad Hatter: The team has sued its fans who had sued the team. The wonderful thing about Tiggers … oops, wrong fairy tale.

The Bucs moved this year to a new stadium, funded with public money (oh, what a surprise). Some season ticket holders thought they got shafted when they discovered their seats in the new stadium weren’t where they had been in the old one. A couple of the fans sued the team.

It seems what the fans really wanted was some respect from the team. They obviously had argued with the team for their old seats and there came a point where they felt so trampled by the Bucs they just weren’t going to take it any more.

Most folks who read about the suit probably said, “Good luck,” figuring the fans would settle the case for new seats not as good as last year’s, but better than what they have now.

Wrong. The team counter-sued the fans, saying the lawsuit defamed the team and asked for damages of their own. Can you see Alice now, tumbling through the tunnel?

Over the past decade there has been a seeming increase in lawsuits that are called “bully suits.” Powerful corporations and individuals bring a suit or countersuit for the primary purpose of scaring the other side in a case and sending out a warning to others, who may be thinking of suing, of what’s in store for them.

It’s the use of the courts by big money and power to bully probable legitimate claims from ever being filed. Big money can string lawsuits out and make cases very expensive. Big money can so complicate proceedings that even the most legitimate of claims, by those without assets to put up the fight, end up being dropped or never filed.

The tactic is not new. It also reeks as much as ever. It’s a misuse of the system that requires strong judges to stop it.

Is that what the Bucs ownership is doing in their suit? We may find out. It is likely the attorney for the fans will seek to dismiss the Bucs’ claim as spurious and ask that the team pay for any costs to the fans resulting from the countersuit.

If the team’s case is just a bully suit, should there be even more damages assessed against the team? If the purpose of the countersuit was to generate publicity that would keep fans from pursuing legitimate claims, there should be a significant damage award. Anything less means the team wins.

The countersuit generated national publicity. It became a warning to fans in any sport of what might happen if they sought legal redress against teams for alleged damaging actions. Such results in the law are known as “chilling effects.” Suits brought for that purpose are repugnant to the system and deserve the most serious attention. Was that the purpose of the Bucs’ countersuit? We’ll see.

Imagine the day when paying fans were viewed as customers to be taken care of instead of bodies to fill the seats so the television broadcast looks good. Imagine the day fans had enough of a life to tell sports teams to take a hike when the teams acted otherwise.

Last Sunday one of the fans who sued and is being sued was in his seat in Tampa – his new seat. Alice, please come back and explain all this to us.

NEWS columnist Gary Thorne, an Old Town native, is an ESPN and CBS broadcaster.