If successful, Florida State’s latest motion in ACC lawsuit could expedite potential departure from league

Florida State filed a motion Tuesday for a partial summary judgment in its lawsuit against the ACC that could expedite the school’s potential departure from the conference, according to court documents reviewed by CBS Sports.

The filing is another development, and perhaps the most significant yet, in the ongoing suit that began in December 2023. FSU is asking for a partial summary judgment related to breach of contract and its ACC exit fee, which is more than $140 million. If the judge in Leon County, Florida, rules in favor of FSU’s request, the school could have more cache to ask the ACC for a reduced exit fee, said Mit Winter, an expert in college sports litigation based in Kansas City.

“Florida State filing this motion for summary judgment is their attempt at a kill shot for all the litigation that’s going on,” said Winter.

The ACC and Florida State met in August for mediation but did not resolve the legal dispute, leading FSU to file a 574-page request for a partial summary judgment this week In Florida. Per court documents, FSU’s attorneys argue the ACC has misinterpreted the conference’s grant of rights, which were amended in 2016, while also breaching its constitution “in three different articles,” including suing FSU without a full vote from its member institutions. They also claim the ACC wouldn’t own the broadcast rights to FSU’s home games should it leave the conference and that those rights were “never granted to the ACC” under 2016’s amended grant of rights agreement. 

FSU is pushing for the summary judgment, arguing that “postponing the resolution of this question only compounds the expense and travesty.” The filing contends hundreds of millions of Florida’s dollars are at stake if the case continues, according to the Tampa Bay Times. The filing also asserts the ACC pushed a “false narrative while the terms of the 2016 ESPN Agreements were kept hidden.”

If FSU leaves the conference without a settlement or resolution In the case, exit fees and media rights could bleed the university of nearly half a billion dollars.

If the judge rules in favor of FSU, the ACC would have the right to appeal and further delay the school’s potential departure from the conference. The ACC is suing FSU in a North Carolina court, where ACC headquarters are located. If the court in Florida rules in favor of FSU and later a judge in North Carolina’s state court rules in favor of the ACC, “it’s a question of which state court’s ruling is going to win out, which could get really messy and would probably have to eventually go to federal court at some point,” Winter said.

“You could keep your case in North Carolina going, or let’s just figure out a settlement agreement so we can both walk away and end all this litigation and all the money we’re spending,” Winter continued. “If they get the summary judgment in Florida’s state court, it would probably increase the chances of a settlement happening.”

Potentially helping FSU is that the case is being heard in Leon County. “They basically have homeport advantage here,” Winter said, “but it’s hard to say what a judge is going to do.”

Previously, the judges in Florida and North Carolina have ruled on opposite sides in the separate cases. In June, the North Carolina judge disagreed that the ACC preemptively filed a lawsuit against FSU before the school sued the ACC. The judge in Leon County, John C. Cooper, felt it was true.

On Wednesday, the ACC argued in Florida’s First District Court of Appeal to pause FSU’s suit in Leon County while the ACC’s suit against FSU continues in North Carolina. “You have to be wearing garnet and gold-colored lenses to come up with Tallahassee as the answer for the most natural place for that contract dispute,” the ACC argued in the appellate court, according to the Tampa Bay Times.