Zuffa filed its response to New York’s motions to dismiss its Equal Protection and Due Process causes of action in its Complaint. It also argued that the Court should consider the changed circumstances in determining the MMA ban in New York state.
As you may recall, New York filed a motion to dismiss on two causes of action in Zuffa’s Complaint and indicated that it may file a further motion to dismiss the rest of the lawsuit.
Zuffa’s 39 page response is broken into two sections. The first section addresses the issue of whether a court may look into a changed circumstance when conducting rational basis scrutiny under the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses. Zuffa provides the court with a plethora of cases which have courts looking into changed circumstances while asserting that there are no rulings to the contrary.
The second section of the response brief contends that there are issues of fact with both its Equal Protection and Due Process claims to survive the motion to dismiss.
(H/t: Fight Lawyer)
Payout Perspective:
As you may recall, the Court requested briefing on the following issue:
Defendants will submit a limited motion to dismiss addressing only the issue of whether due process and equal protection analysis requires the Court to determine whether there was a rational basis for the law at issue only at the time it was passed, or whether the Court must determine whether there is a rational basis for the law at present (in other words, whether the Court should take into account a change in factual circumstances that makes the law no longer rational, even if it had a rational basis at the time of passage). Defendants’ motion is due 1/27/12. Plaintiffs’ reply is due 2/17/12.Defendants’ response is due 3/2/12. (js) Modified on 1/9/2012 (tro). (Entered: 01/06/2012)
Essentially, will a court look at the changing circumstances that occurs over the course of time when considering if a law has a rational purpose.
Zuffa contends that the defendants should have briefed the court on the issue above instead of New York’s “full blown” motions to dismiss. Zuffa has an argument if you look at the “addressing only the issue” language in the first sentence of the court order. However, its likely that the court will rule on New York’s motions.
Zuffa, as most parties do in a brief, argue the differences in the opposition’s cited cases in its brief. Here, it argues that the cases cited by New York do not address the specific issue at hand: whether courts take into consideration changed circumstances when conducting a rational basis analysis under the Equal Protection and Due Process Clause.
In the second part of the response briefing, Zuffa identifies facts that should have its causes of action survive a motion to dismiss. Much of this has been detailed in the Complaint.
New York’s Reply Brief is due March 2nd. We will keep you posted and have more in the coming days.
Apparently NY saw it fit to skip the justiciability of the Zuffa case and proceeded to argue on the merits. Oddly suspicious.
But then maybe the DA is just going through the motions of responding and doesn’t really believe the suit should be defended; just doing a perfunctory job? Who knows what’s going on behind the scenes? Maybe the DA is getting political pressure to defend, but has no desire to waste precious resources on doing so?