UPDATE: SI is now reporting Jamie McCourt has been officially fired, within the last two days. (LA Times confirms.)
LAT also offers:
Jamie McCourt is believed to be lining up investors for a possible effort to buy out her husband and gain sole control of the team. In addition, she is believed to have started calling prominent baseball figures, with the intention of arranging meetings to discuss the direction of the team.
This is getting good. A week after the news hit that the McCourts were divorcing, SI reports today that “Frank McCourt is seriously considering firing his wife Jamie as CEO.”
Frank McCourt is chairman of the club and highest ranking officer of the franchise. Jamie is the second-highest ranking officer.
More: “Both McCourts have expressed an interest in owning the Dodgers separately.”
Frank is clearly firing a pre-emptive shot in a grapple of power for the $700M franchise. California is a 50-50 community property state for married couples, so if the couple goes through with the divorce, that would most likely mean that Jamie would officially own half the team on paper. That would in turn make her unfireable - and level her power within the organization with her husband.
Thing is though, if Jamie is going to own half the time, what difference does her CEO title mean anyway? Perhaps Frank’s lawyers are thinking that if she’s no longer involved in the day-to-day when the divorce proceeding begins, they can argue she should have to serve as a silent partner.
Or perhaps this is a prelude to Frank trying to buy Jamie out of her share of the team. Or prevent Jamie from buying him out!
So now large-market L.A. fans not only have an underfunded owner, but we get this.
*looks for popcorn*
7:41 pm on October 22nd, 2009
I fired my wife a long time ago but she’s still around.
8:24 pm on October 22nd, 2009
Community property laws don’t mean that each person owns it 50/50 (although that’s a popular misconception). It means that each person owns 100% of the assett, in joint ownership with the other. If the parties can’t come to an agreement, the judge usually will award an assett such as this to one person, and give the other person other assetts of more or less equal value.
It’s the same way a judge won’t order a house to be chain-sawed down the middle. If a judge can’t do that (perhaps the assett has disproportionate value to the other items in the couple’s total estate), then the judge might give one party ownership, subject to a lien owed to the other due to be paid off either at a specific time or upon sale of the assett.
I don’t know how long this couple was married. Remember that if one of the parties had the property before they got married, the value attributable to the assett at that time would be the seperate property of the person who first owned it. The remainder of the value MIGHT be community property, if it was increased in value during ownership by the contributions of the married couple (either in labor or additional mony).
The real battle will probably be won at the first hearing for temporary restraining orders. The judge will give one or the other control of the team pending trial. By the time the trial occurs, that status quo usually becomes permanant.
9:03 am on October 23rd, 2009
Any indication of the reason for the sudden bitterness?