A former ESPN tennis analyst who sued after being fired in 2017 due to his description of Venus Williams’ style of play won a round in court when a judge ruled a senior network executive will remain a co-defendant in the case .
On Monday, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Feffer denied a motion for reconsideration in which ESPN lawyer Raymond Bertrand argued that ESPN Senior Vice President for Production and Remote Events Mark Gross should be removed as a defendant. Bertrand maintained there was no legal basis for holding Gross liable for wrongful termination of an employment contract and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
However, Feffer disagreed and said Gross will remain a co-defendant with ESPN. She had noted in a June ruling that Gross allegedly made the decision to fire Adler on behalf of the sports channel.
Adler, now represented by the law firm founded by the late Johnnie Cochran, maintains his use of the word “guerrilla” was misinterpreted by some critics, many on social media, who thought he was using the racially offensive term “gorilla” regarding the black tennis star and her performance in the Australian Open.
The term “guerrilla tennis” was meant to describe aggressive tactics, but ESPN “bowed to the Twitter universe of haters and those ignorant of tennis who thought (Adler) used the word gorilla to describe Venus Williams that day,” Adler alleges.
Feffer noted in the earlier hearing that “Guerrilla Tennis” was the name of a Nike TV commercial in the 1990s featuring Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras. She said a jury should decide if ESPN was negligent in its alleged representations to Adler that he could keep his job if he issued an apology crafted by the network rather than one he dictated himself.
Trial is scheduled Oct. 15. The suit, filed in February 2017, alleges that other employers shunned Adler following ESPN’s firing of him shortly after the Jan. 18, 2017, Williams match.
Adler, 60, lives in Los Angeles and was an All-American player at USC. He was hired by ESPN in 2008 and covered the U.S. Open, French Open and Wimbledon. He alleges the network ruined his sterling reputation cultivated over 40 years, during which he announced some 3,000 matches.