Zion Williamson Files Shocking Response To Gina Ford’s Lawsuit Counterclaims, Raising More Questions Than Answers

Zion Williamson’s legal team has filed an answer to Gina Ford’s counterclaims in the pending North Carolina lawsuit. In Williamson’s motion for judgment regarding the pending lawsuit in North Carolina, he is asking for an immediate judgment in his favor declaring the agreement with Gina Ford void. The basis for the motion is Ford’s meeting and communications with the family before Zion Williamson left Duke University, a violation of the Uniform Athlete Agent Act. At the heart of the lawsuit is the question of whether a UAAA clause should have been included in the contract.

Williamson’s attorneys argue that “the agreement is void under the UAAA as a result of the Defendant’s (Ford) actions as an unregistered athlete agents.” Furthermore, since “the undisputed facts show that Ford was (and is) an unregistered athlete agent” the UAAA should not only apply, the court should render “void any agency contract entered into as a result of contact by an Unregistered Athlete Agent.” Williamson’s representatives assert that this legal action has precedent. As such, Ford’s “conclusory assertion that Williamson is not protected by the UAAA is both incorrect and legally irrelevant.”

In response to Ford’s initial counterclaims, Williamson’s attorneys included text messages which indicate Ford and Williamson’s parents had multiple meetings from January 2019 through March 2019. Williamson was still playing at Duke University during this timeframe. Daniel Wallach first reported the newest developments in North Carolina. Williamson filed his case against Ford in North Carolina. Ford filed her lawsuit against Williamson in Flordia soon after.

Williamson’s newest submission to the court also alleges that Ford’s counsel in the North Carolina lawsuit, Willie Gary, was possibly involved in the marketing agreement between Ford’s Prime Sports and Williamson. According to Wallach, if Gary was involved in the negotiations as far back as February 2019, as Williamson alleges, this would “make him a fact witness and subject to disqualification under the lawyer-witness rule.”

In one text message exchange, Sharonda Williamson opens by wishing Ford a safe trip and saying “Zion was here.” She then asks Ford, “What is the name of your company? I couldn’t remember. He wanted to look it up.”

Ford replies, “Hi Sharonda. The attorneys name is Willie Gary. Let me know what you think when you google him.”

Sharonda Williamson then replies, “Thanks. I will look him up. I actually started looking for information about him. Does he specialize in this type of thing?”

Ford answers, “He has done alot of negotiations for high profile athletes before.” Ford then forwards Gary’s phone number to the Williamson family.

It is unclear who Gary would be representing in whatever “type of thing” this “high profile negotiation” was, which should be concerning. Did Williamson have representation during this negotiation, and if so, was Williamson the biggest priority?

These new developments in Zion Williamson’s lawsuit saga will bring more scrutiny upon his time at Duke. Williamson offered up these text messages willingly. DeAndre Ayton was mentioned in the text messages as well. Ayton was also one of the players featured in the documentary The Scheme, which focused on his recruitment process and time at Arizona University.

Last April, the now-incarcerated lawyer Micheal Avenatti tweeted at the official Duke men’s basketball account requesting that they “please ask Zion Williamson’s mother – Sharonda Sampson – whether she was paid by @nike for bogus “consulting services” in 2016/17 as part of a Nike bribe to get Zion to go to Duke?” Now even more questions regarding his recruitment and season at Duke will be directed at the university.

Ford will have to respond to this motion for judgment against her. She will likely argue to the court that the UAAA is unenforceable in this instance and that the Florida court has jurisdiction since neither Williamson nor Ford have had no meaningful business activities in North Carolina since the lawsuit was filed.

The judge could keep this lawsuit from sprawling. The court could decide to split the discovery and trial of each of these issues. The breach of contract claims could be argued separately from the tortious interference claims. Since all of these claims are being raised in the same lawsuit,rather than tackle them in a scattershot matter, it could make the most sense to address one and then proceed to the other if necessary.

Typically this is a tough sell, as proof of one issue is necessarily bound up in the others. Here there is a pretty clear line of demarcation because the reality remains: You cannot intefere or breach a contract that was illegal from the start. Therefore, it might make sense to focus the court’s energy on resolving only the threshold issue of contract validity.

The last thing in favor of a bifurcation process is the timing. Williamson could not breach and Nike/CAA could not interfere with a contract before the contract even existed. These arguments will focus on contract formation and validity issues almost exclusively. Until the courts in North Carolina and Florida work through jurisdicational motions and appeals to dismissal rulings, these lawsuits will continue to bring up more questions about how this all happened rather than answers on how to be done with the legal mess.