Charles Oakley’s lawsuit in opposition to Madison Sq. Backyard and proprietor James Dolan was dismissed for a 3rd time Friday, concluding one other chapter to the authorized battle involving the previous Knicks star that dates again to when he was ejected from the Backyard following an altercation with safety guards in February 2017.
MSG mentioned in an announcement that the claims had been dismissed by the court docket “of their entirety” and that it deliberate to pursue authorized motion in opposition to Douglas Wigdor — Oakley’s lawyer — and “his unscrupulous regulation agency.” Wigdor, in an announcement to The Submit, expressed disappointment with the court docket’s ruling and nonetheless hoped for a jury trial.
“For greater than 9 years, Mr. Oakley’s legal professionals have pursued claims they knew had been false,” MSG mentioned in its assertion. “These claims have now been dismissed by the Court docket of their entirety — for a 3rd time. We’re pursuing authorized motion in opposition to Douglas Wigdor, and his unscrupulous regulation agency, to carry them accountable for years of frivolous litigation and their blatant abuse of the judicial system.”
The case was initially tossed in early 2020, revived later that 12 months, tossed once more in 2021 after which revived for a second time in Could 2023.
“We’re upset with the Court docket’s rulings,” Wigdor mentioned in his assertion to The Submit. “We imagine there are conflicting accounts and solely a jury can resolve what precisely occurred. We’re hopeful that the Second Circuit will agree for a 3rd time and remand the case for a direct jury trial.”
Oakley, who spent 10 years as a participant for the Knicks and was a key piece of the franchise’s success within the Nineties, was arrested and faraway from the Backyard throughout the Knicks sport on Feb. 8, 2017, and whereas the costs had been dropped, he filed a lawsuit later that 12 months — alleging, partly, assault, false imprisonment and defamation. That lawsuit was dismissed in February 2020. The 2nd Circuit Court docket of Appeals reversed the dismissal of the battery and assault claims in November 2020. When the appeals court docket reversed it for a second time in 2023, it dominated that the “query of whether or not using drive was cheap below the circumstances is usually finest left for a jury to resolve.”
However greater than three years later, a 3rd dismissal adopted. In circuit choose Richard J. Sullivan’s opinion and order, he wrote that “no rational jury may conclude that Oakley moderately feared himself susceptible to wrongful bodily contact — not to mention that MSG meant to stir such a terror.”
“Though the alleged assault occurred in the midst of Madison Sq. Backyard in entrance of 19,000 and scores of cameras, Oakley concedes there’s no different witness — moreover himself — who says he was pushed to the bottom,” Sullivan wrote on the primary web page of his opinion and order, in accordance with MSG.
Oakley’s public feud with Dolan has loomed over the Knicks because it started. The Submit’s Jared Schwartz reported in 2025 that the workforce was prepared to welcome Oakley again as a “celebrated workforce alumnus” if he dropped the lawsuit. An preliminary ban instituted by Dolan in 2017 had been lifted. Oakley attended playoff video games on the street throughout the Knicks’ championship run within the spring.
“Ample proof — together with movies from a number of angles and the unanimous testimony of each witness (even, to some extent, Oakley himself) — exhibits that Oakley had an affordable alternative to depart the Backyard, that he as a substitute resorted to bodily violence, and that he was by no means pushed to the bottom,” Sullivan wrote, in accordance with MSG.
