The Los Angeles Dodgers want a judge to bar any mention of the 2011 attack by home team fans on San Francisco Giants follower Bryan Stow in the upcoming trial of another man who alleges he was beaten by the team’s security force in 2021.
Plaintiffs Salvador and Priscilla Mota said they attended the game against the Pittsburgh Pirates on Aug. 17, 2021. The couple was about to drive out of one of the Dodger Stadium parking lots when security team members told Salvador Mota to get out of his car, the suit states.
“Priscilla watched in horror as sworn and non-sworn security attacked her husband without reason or provocation,” states their suit, which was brought in April 2022.
Salvador Mota was handcuffed and taken to a hospital for severe facial, eye, shoulder and leg injuries, according to their suit, which alleges assault, battery, false imprisonment, violation of civil rights and emotional distress.
In 2011, Stow was attacked in one of the venue’s parking lots. A Los Angeles Superior Court jury in 2014 awarded about $18 million in damages to Stow while attributing 75% of the liability to his two assailants who beat him into a coma, 25% to the team and none to former Dodgers owner Frank McCourt.
In their court papers, Dodger lawyers maintain that any mention of the Stow case during the Mota trial set for Jan. 22 would be prejudicial to the team.
“Nothing in the Bryan Stow incident would tend to show that the Los Angeles Dodgers or any defendant is liable for the claims asserted by plaintiffs in this matter,” the team’s attorneys argue in their court papers filed Friday with Judge Teresa A. Beaudet in advance of a Jan. 10 hearing.
“Moreover, the jury verdict from this (Stow) case is both irrelevant and substantially more prejudicial than probative,” the Dodgers attorneys further argue in their court papers while also stating that under the current ownership and management, the security protocol is much different than when Stow was attacked.