AEW and its president, Tony Khan, filed a petition on Friday in the U.S. District Court in the Middle District of Florida, seeking to compel Ryan Nemeth into arbitration.
The filing comes in response to the lawsuit Nemeth filed last month in California at the state level, in Superior Court in Los Angeles, against AEW, Khan, Phil Brooks (CM Punk), and 20 John Does to be named. In the suit, Nemeth alleges professional retaliation, that he’s been blacklisted from the wrestling industry by the parties he’s suing, and that Brooks assaulted him in the AEW locker room.
In the new petition, AEW and Khan contend that Nemeth’s claims should be adjudicated through private arbitration rather than in public in court. The petition states that Nemeth signed three contracts with the wrestling company: dated March 1, 2021; January 17, 2022; and March 1, 2023. Each contract, the petitioners state, contains identical arbitration clauses that purport to mandate that disputes be resolved in Duval County, Florida, under JAMS, Inc. arbitration rules.
Nemeth and his attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment. This report will be updated if they respond.
Brooks, who is no longer with AEW and is a defendant in Nemeth’s California lawsuit, is not a named party in AEW and Khan’s petition in Florida federal court. This is not surprising, as Nemeth’s contractual agreements were with AEW, and Brooks is no longer affiliated with the company.
AEW and Khan argue that Nemeth has “ignored his contractual obligations and binding authority requiring arbitration” by filing a lawsuit in Los Angeles County. The company and its lead executive are asking the federal court to enforce the arbitration clause, direct him to pursue his claims in arbitration, and require Nemeth to pay for the attorneys’ fees that AEW is incurring by bringing this petition to court.
According to AEW, the language of the arbitration clause in Nemeth’s contract states:
[a]ll disputes between [Nemeth] and AEW, including, without limitation, any dispute relating to any matter arising under this Agreement or any dispute concerning the performance, application or interpretation of any provision of this Agreement, shall be resolved for final, binding, and conclusive arbitration conducted before a single arbitrator in Duval County, Florida and administered by JAMS, Inc. pursuant to its Comprehensive Arbitration Rules and Procedures.
AEW’s attempt to enforce arbitration in the dispute with Nemeth is similar to the company’s response in another ongoing lawsuit brought against AEW by Kevin Kelly and the Tate Twins, who signed contracts with similar, if not identical, language regarding arbitration. In that case, too, the company is arguing that the arbitration clauses in their talent contracts require the plaintiffs to bring their cases to arbitration rather than a public forum.
AEW argues that the federal court in Florida — where the company previously succeeded in relocating the Kelly case — is the appropriate jurisdiction due to the diversity of citizenship among the parties and because the monetary amount at issue in the Nemeth case exceeds $75,000, meeting the threshold for federal jurisdiction.
Nemeth will have an opportunity to respond to AEW’s petition, and the court will ultimately decide whether to uphold the arbitration clause that AEW says is in his talent contract. Attorneys in Kelly and the Tates’ case have argued that the arbitration clauses shouldn’t be enforced because, they claim, they weren’t given a real chance to negotiate it, and it favors AEW by limiting what wrestlers can do legally while giving the company more options.
Like the contracts in the other case, AEW intends to file Nemeth’s contracts under seal “due to the Confidentiality provision in each of the agreements.”
AEW’s petition against Nemeth has been assigned to Judge Wendy W. Berger and Magistrate Judge Laura Lothman Lambert.
AEW and Khan are represented by B. Tyler White of the Jackson Lewis P.C. law firm. White also represents those parties in the case involving Kelly and the Tates.
