A court will determine whether William Keane’s lawsuit against Top Rank will be dismissed next month.
Originally scheduled for Monday, the Court issued an order moving the date to February 5th.
Keane’s attorney was allowed to amend the original complaint to include more factual context in order to survive a Motion to Dismiss. The threshold for avoiding a Motion to Dismiss per the federal rule which could throw out the case if it does not allege facts that, if true, would entitle the plaintiff to legal relief.
Fortunately for us, Keane includes a redline version to see where the attorneys changed or added parts. Specifically, Keane includes several sections with substantive facts.
First Amended Complaint by MMA Payout
The First Amended Complaint deletes a claim for an Accounting of Top Rank. It had requested a full accounting of Top Rank’s records but that has been deleted from the current lawsuit.
The first big addition in the lawsuit is the allegation that duBoef represented to Keane that his compensation would not only include those fighters he recruited but other fighters would be funneled to Keane directly. This additional perk would not cost Keane anything as it was represented that Top Rank would be compensating Keane for these services.
The lawsuit also adds more details regarding a 2019 agreement between duBoef and Keane. According to the allegations, Keane stated that the formation of the agreement for the compensation setup never came as promised from duBoef. Keane asked duBoef in April 2019. The hold-up was allegedly due to duBoef’s team at Top Rank needing to “do some models” in order to develop the right approach. Again, Keane attempted to ask in the fall of 2019 but the excuse this time was due to finding and recruiting fighters that were named to the 2020 Olympic boxing team. In February 2020, Keane was told that duBoef and Top Rank were having difficulty in directing fighters to Keane due to a “signing freeze” by Top Rank and TR was having difficulty having the fighters change their representation to Keane. He learned in April 2022 that duBoef never took any action based on the compensation structure they allegedly agreed to in 2019.
As a result, Keane claims that he was working to direct fighters to Top Rank based on the representations made by duBoef that Top Rank was working on some type of agreement that never came to fruition.
Also included once again in this lawsuit is an allegation that duBoef is known to be a racist.
Payout Perspective:
The details included in the First Amended Complaint were added to provide some context and detail to build Keane’s legal claim for a breach of contract and/or a detrimental reliance claim. Either, duBoef and Top Rank breached a contract with Keane related to the belief that he would be compensated based on bringing in fighters to the promotion. Or, a detrimental reliance claim where he reasonably relied on a promise (here by deBoef) to pay Keane based on alleged agreements they had on fighter recruitment and sharing in profits.
Obviously, duBoef and Top Rank dispute the alleged agreements it had with Keane. Whether or not the timeline of promises and whether the alleged discussions amounted to a contract OR it was something that a person would rely on will be up to the Court as it hears TR’s Motion to Dismiss the lawsuit next month.
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