A custody issue of sorts is rocking the world of baseball’s Los Angeles Dodgers.
As part of their divorce proceedings, Jamie L. McCourt and Dodgers owner Frank McCourt Jr. aren’t fighting over their adult children.
Rather, they’re fighting over her former job with the team and the ownership of the Dodgers.
Jamie L. McCourt
Frank fired Jamie, who had been the team’s CEO and vice chairman, in a one-sentence letter on Oct. 21.
She fired back with a 137-page petition for divorce filed on Oct. 27. It asked that she be reinstated to her $2 million-a-year job, that she be recognized as co-owner of the team, and that she receive substantial spousal support.
His lawyers responded that she was fired because she was having an affair with a Dodgers employee, Jeff Fuller, and because she was not doing a good job as CEO.
She denied the affair and pointed to the Dodgers on-field success as proof of her executive capabilities.
On Nov. 5, a Superior Court commissioner ruled against reinstating Jamie McCourt to her job, saying that there was no state law that required this action.
The issues of team ownership and spousal support remain unresolved.
The McCourts, who had made millions in the Boston real estate market, purchased the Dodgers in January 2004.
Jamie McCourt, who is a lawyer, argues that Frank McCourt was made owner of the team on paper because of a Major League rule that there be a sole owner. However, in reality, they were both owners, she states.
Lawyers for her husband argue that she signed an agreement in 2004 giving him ownership of the team. In turn, she received ownership of their several homes.
In her divorce filing, Jamie McCourt asks for $487,634 a month in living expenses. If she were to be reinstated with the Dodgers organization, she would settle for $320,967 a month.
She contends that she and her husband are worth at least $1.2 billion, $800 million of that being the value of the Dodgers.
She states that she does not know Frank McCourt’s income from the Dodgers but estimates it as between $5 million and $6 million.
Lawyers for Frank McCourt contend that he has less than $1.2 million in his bank account.
Bertram Fields, the celebrity lawyer representing Jamie McCourt, referred to this statement as “baloney.”
“He is not the first husband to claim poverty when asked to support his wife,” Fields told The Wall Street Journal.
In a section of her divorce petition entitled “Our Marital Lifestyle,” a lifestyle she asks to be maintained, Jamie McCourt catalogs some of the couple’s expenditures. By her account, they have included:
- Travel by private jet and five-star hotel accommodations.
- Four homes in California, one purchased for $27 million, another for $20 million, a third for $19 million and a fourth for $6.5 million.
- Two homes on Cap Cod, a condo in Vail, and property on the Yellowstone Club in Montana.
There are also numerous meals out at a cost of $200 a person and steep tuition bills for their three sons now at Stanford University. (The fourth works at Goldman Sachs.)
In addition to asking for support, Jamie McCourt would like daily access to the Olympic-sized swimming pool at one of their homes.
“I am an avid swimmer, and we built this pool primarily for my use,” she notes.
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