(The Center Square) – Cleveland made good on its promise and is suing the Browns over the NFL franchises plan to move the team to Brook Park.
The lawsuit in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court alleges the Browns are ignoring the state’s Modell Law, which in part requires the team be made available for sale for a six-month period before the franchise can be moved.
The Browns filed a federal lawsuit last fall challenging the constitutionality of the Modell Law, which was enacted in 1996 after the previous Browns franchise was moved to Baltimore.
Cleveland has spent $350 million on the construction, repair and maintenance of the Browns’ current home, Huntington Bank Field, and the city says the lawsuit is intended to protect that investment.
The lawsuit said the Modell Law means the team cannot “bilk the City and its taxpayers for millions, only to unilaterally abandon what the City provided to them.”
Cleveland sent an early January letter to the team promising a lawsuit if it did not comply with Modell Rule requirements.
“The Modell Law is clear: if you take taxpayer money to fund your stadium, you have obligations to the community that made that investment possible,” said Mark Griffin, law director and chief legal counsel for the City of Cleveland. “The Haslam Group’s circumvention of these requirements not only undermines the trust of Cleveland’s residents but also violates a law designed to protect all Ohioans.”
The team said it is moving forward on buying a 176-acre site in Brook Park that will be the site of a new stadium and development.
“The future of our lakefront and our city is brighter with the Cleveland Browns continuing to play football on the shores of Lake Erie, just as they have for generations,” Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb said.
While the Browns claim the development will benefit the public, the “public partners” referenced is the team asking for $1.2 billion in public funds to build a $2.4 billion stadium on the site.
“It is ironic that the Haslams, who are currently not complying with Ohio’s Modell Law, previously relied on the same law to acquire the Columbus Crew soccer team,” Griffin said. “Their use of the law to secure the Crew underscores the importance of these protections for communities and taxpayers, making their current sidestepping of the Modell Law even more glaring.”
