Rather’s Victory Short-Lived

Easy come, easy go.

A little more than a week after celebrating surviving a motion to dismiss, former CBS anchor Dan Rather is back out on the curb in his $70 million wrongful-termination suit against the Tiffany Network.

Interestingly, the court relied in large part on a description of the deal that flew below most radars, including ours.

The telling point, and recapping the lawyers on the deal, after the jump.

Rather claimed that he had been made a scapegoat for the network’s botched reporting of George W. Bush’s military service. But it seems there was more to the story

“This claim attempts to gloss over the fact that Rather continued to be compensated at his normal CBS salary of approximately $6 million a year until June 2006 when the compensation was accelerated upon termination, consistent with his contract,” the court wrote. Rather’s contract did not require “that CBS actually use Rather’s services or broadcast any programs on which he appears, but simply retains the option of accelerating the payment of his compensation under the agreement if he is not assigned to either program.”

The appellate division found that Rather failed to support his claim that CBS damaged his future business opportunities, saying “it would be speculative to conclude that any action taken by CBS would have alone substantially affected his market value at that time.” And the appeals judges wrote that he could not sue for breach of fiduciary duty because CBS did not owe Rather a fiduciary duty.

As we vaguely recall from law school, it’s pretty tough to get booted on summary judgment. The courts are supposed to bend over backwards to let you get your day in court (within reason).

The appellate division wrote that Rather had no grounds on which to claim fraud, dismissing his argument that he is making substantially less money at his current job at HDNet than the $4 million annually he believed he could have made at CBS as speculative and irrelevant. And the anchor failed to prove that the fall-out from CBS’ handling of the Bush story curtailed other job prospects.

“As to lost opportunities in the trade, while Rather has shown his own track record of earnings and the earnings of other trade professionals, his future earnings are speculative, because there is no basis to conclude that his employment status would not have changed, regardless of CBS’s actions, once he determined to make the broadcast,” the ruling said. “Rather never identified a single opportunity with specified terms that was actually available to him and which he declined to accept because of CBS’ actions.”

Rather is represented by Sonnenschein’s Martin Gold (Amherst BA ‘58, Columbia JD ‘61), who expressed disappointment and promised an appeal. James Quinn (Notre Dame BA ‘67, Fordham LLB ‘71), co-head of Weil Gotshal’s litigation practice, represents CBS.

Guess this means Sumner Redstone won’t be testifying.

Related posts:

1. Rather Suit Goes Forward; “Worst Client” to Testify