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Judge rules for LeBron James, paternity suit dismissed
RICHARD WEINER
Legal News Reporter
Published: September 23, 2011
A lawsuit brought by a Washington lawyer claiming to be LeBron James’s father has been dismissed by a federal court.
On June 23, 2010, a lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia alleging that LeBron James was conceived by his mother, Gloria, through her relationship with the plaintiff of that lawsuit, Leicester Bryce Stovell.
The original complaint, 1:10-cv-01059, alleged that Gloria James threatened Stovell and committed fraud and misrepresentation in an effort to conceal the identity of James’ father. It also alleges that she and LeBron James have defamed Stovell’s character, quoting LeBron James as saying publicly, “I want to be a better father than mine was.”
Gloria gave birth to LeBron when she was 16, and has always maintained that the superstar’s father was one Anthony McClelland. The complaint, however, alleged that a paternity test had eliminated McClelland as the father.
Stovell is a former lawyer for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission who filed a racial discrimination claim against the agency in 1999. He was a solo practitioner at the time that the complaint was filed.
In part, his complaint read:
“I recently have concluded that a comprehensive, sophisticated and well-funded effort might well have been underway for quite some time, perhaps beginning in its present form as early as when Defendant LeBron James was in high school, to frustrate identification of his real father, and that there is a likelihood that the father in question is me,” the complaint reads.
Stovell contended in the complaint that he met Gloria James at a Washington, D.C. bar and restaurant in mid-March 1984, when she was visiting from Ohio. They had sex once, and she told him months later that she was pregnant with a boy she planned to name LeBron, seemingly after “Leicester Bryce.”
The complaint asked for a paternity test and millions of dollars in damages, as well as damages for “loss of love and affection,” seemingly skipping over the statutory rape and underage drinking allegations that were implied in the complaint itself.
In her 21-page opinion, which was filed on Sept. 14, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly granted a request by James and his mother to dismiss the case. The judge wrote that, among other problems, Stovell’s lawsuit failed to show that he had incurred any actual damages, such as lost commercial opportunities.
“Apparently, Stovell believes that companies are willing to pay him for being the father of LeBron James,” wrote the judge. “However, any such recovery would be wholly speculative.”
The action for “loss of love and affection”, wrote the judge, is not a “recognizable form of damages in an action for common law fraud.”
The judge was also completely dismissive of the defamation claim, including the “want a better father” statement above. Kollar-Kotelly held that no one could have possibly thought that those statements were aimed at Stovell because no one thought that Stovell was LeBron’s father.
Even if he is the father, she wrote, “Statements disparaging ‘LeBron James’s father’ do not defame Stovell unless the people who heard them could have understood them as referencing Stovell.”
Stovell, who represented himself in the case, disagreed with the judge's opinion in an email he sent out. "It, following defense counsel's lead, forces a very unusual set of facts alleged in the complaint into the mold of a 'typical case' in dismissing it, refusing to draw required reasonable inferences," he wrote. "However, [the] opinion and order leave open a number of legal options."
Stovell may very well have expected this result, even at the time that he filed the original Complaint. Asked about the unusual nature of the case, he said at the time that, “
“Skepticism under circumstances like this is not an unusual response at all. I have prepared myself for a certain measure of skepticism, particularly if someone has not read the complaint.”
But, he added, “I think it’s possible to persuade a group of reasonable people that my position is completely appropriate under the circumstances.”
That hope did not extend to Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly
LeBron’s long-time attorney and advisor Fredrick Nance was a lead attorney for the James team. Nance, a partner at Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, e-mailed a statement on behalf of James' legal team: "We respect and believe in our judicial system and it ultimately worked here to achieve the right result."