lawsuit

As the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals weighs a motion by the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) Authority to vacate its recent opinion that HISA is unconstitutional, a plaintiff team led by the National Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association (NHBPA) on Friday urged the court not to do that, arguing that a new federal law passed two weeks ago to amend the operative language of HISA "does not fix" three alleged constitutionality issues. "This Court's opinion identified three distinct problems with HISA: 'An agency does not have...

A business partnership between performance-figure provider Thoro-Graph, Inc., and the New York Racing Association (NYRA) that had been billed as a "win-win-win" deal for the two parties and advance-deposit wagering (ADW) customers when it first launched in 2017 has gone sour, resulting in a lawsuit filed in New York State Supreme Court. According to the civil complaint, Thoro-Graph is suing both NYRA and its NYRA Bets ADW platform over the alleged non-payment of at least $333,000 that Thoro-Graph believes is its rightful cut for incentivizing horseplayers to become NYRA Bets...

A federal judge in Texas overseeing one of four lawsuits seeking to derail the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act Authority (HISA) on alleged anti-constitutionality grounds ruled Friday that the State of Texas and its racing commission can't join a case spearheaded by the owners of Lone Star Park as an "intervenor," in part because they "cannot show their interests are inadequately represented" and also because they had already been granted intervenor status in a similar case. An "intervenor" designation allows outside parties that have a personal stake in the outcome...

Thoroughbred owner Jerry Jamgotchian, who has a decades-long history as both a plaintiff and defendant in lawsuits involving horse racing entities, went after the California Horse Racing Board (CHRB) in federal court on Monday, claiming that his constitutional and civil rights were violated when the stewards at Los Alamitos Race Course denied entry to one of his horses this past summer over its purportedly controversial name. Although the Oct. 17 United States District Court (Central District, Southern Division) civil complaint puts forth a legal argument based on whether the horse...

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit will now hear oral arguments Aug. 30--slightly earlier than expected--in the injunction appeal brought by the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act Authority (HISA) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Both entities are defendants in an underlying lawsuit that alleges unconstitutionality and federal rulemaking procedure violations regarding HISA's initial framework of regulations that went into effect July 1. The Appeals Court docket previously indicated a September oral argument date was being planned. At issue in the appeal is whether a lower...

Led by 14 affiliates of the Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association (HBPA) and four racetracks, an alliance of entities seeking protection from the alleged harms of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act Authority (HISA) have asked a federal judge to allow them to participate in an existing lawsuit that claims HISA and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) violated the Fourth and Seventh Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, plus the process by which federal agencies develop and issue regulations. On Friday, the anti-HISA parties filed what is known as a "motion...

A panel of three judges from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued a new, more fine-tuned order Monday in the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act Authority (HISA) lawsuit that narrows the scope of an "administrative stay" that same court had issued five days earlier. The Aug. 8 order now means that instead of the entire slate of HISA rules being re-activated in Louisiana and West Virginia (as per the Aug. 3 Appeals Court order that trumped a preliminary injunction issued July 26 by a lower...

A federal judge on Thursday opted not to immediately grant the "expedited consideration" restraining order or injunction that opponents of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) alleged was needed to stave off the "irreparable harm" from "illegal rules" that are set to go into effect at midnight Friday. But within several hours of learning June 30 that Judge Terry Doughty of U.S. District Court (Western District of Louisiana) had given HISA and other defendants two weeks to file a response to the restraining order motion, the lead plaintiffs from...

A co-owner of the deceased stallion Laoban (Uncle Mo) is suing a collective of insurance providers in an alleged wrongful denial of coverage case for failing to pay out on mortality policies in the aftermath of the 8-year-old's sudden death 10 months ago. The civil complaint was filed Mar. 22 in Kentucky's Fayette Circuit Court. Paulick Report first broke the story. According to the court filing, Cypress Creek Equine, LLC, wants the defendants--North American Specialty Insurance Company, XL Specialty Insurance Company and Underwriters at Lloyd's, London and Lloyd's Kentucky, Inc.--to...

A federal judge on Friday dismissed Bob Baffert's lawsuit against the New York Racing Association (NYRA) that had alleged the Hall of Fame trainer was injured by NYRA's initial attempt to bar him back in May and again in September when it summoned him to a hearing to adjudicate his "detrimental" conduct related to repeated equine drug positives. Chief among the reasons that United States District Court (Eastern District of New York) Carol Bagley Amon dismissed the amended complaint were that some of Baffert's claims were not yet "ripe" for...

Alleging that trainer Bob Baffert "is the Lance Armstrong of the horse racing world" because of a purported years-long pattern of racketeering activity related to the alleged "doping" of Thoroughbreds, a group of horse bettors who brought a class-action lawsuit seeking compensation for damages over the result of the 2021 GI Kentucky Derby urged a federal judge Wednesday not to grant Baffert's motion to dismiss the case. The original version of the suit, led by Michael Beychok, the winner of the 2012 National Horseplayers Championship, was filed four days after...

A federal judge on Thursday denied a motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the Ohio Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association (OHBPA) against the present and former owners of Belterra Park that involves the OHBPA trying to recoup more than $2.7 in gaming revenues that the horsemen's group alleges the track wrongfully withheld between 2014 and 2018. Back on Dec. 18, 2020, the OHBPA's suit contended that Belterra never made good on a four-year difference between a placeholder rate first established for video lottery terminal (VLT) gaming and the eventually...