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Nasir and Matt discuss the legalities behind the NBA banning Donald Sterling and answer the question, "One of my employees is very annoying. He does great work but I can tell he is not liked by most coworkers. I also know he will sue if I fire him. How can I handle this best?" Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: This is Legally Sound Smart Business and this is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And this is Matt Staub. NASIR: This is where we cover business news with our legal twist and answer some of your business legal questions that you, the listener, can send in to ask@legallysoundsmartbusiness.com. MATT: All right. Well, let’s just dive in here. I’m a big NBA fan and it’s been a great playoffs so far but, unfortunately, there’s this underlying issue that’s kind of taken the headlines. Even if you’re not a sports fan, you’ve probably heard about this. Donald Sterling, he’s the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers. I believe he’s the longest-standing owner in the NBA. I think he bought it in 1981. He’s been involved in a lot of lawsuits throughout his life – a lot of which are based on racial discrimination, other forms of discrimination – just all sorts of terrible things. But, finally, I think it looks like it caught up to him. There was a bunch of legal things with this but let me get the story first. He was recorded – a private conversation – without his knowledge or consent was recorded of his where he’s just saying terrible things to – I don’t know exactly what the relationship is because I believe he’s still married. Maybe he’s not married. I don’t know. Basically, this young woman recorded this conversation where Donald Sterling said all these pretty bad things from a racial standpoint and then it got leaked. The NBA finally said, “Enough is enough.” There’s a new commissioner in the NBA who just took over in February so this is his first big task here. He came out and banned him from the NBA – showing up to games, being part of anything with the organization. Now, he still gets payouts. He still owns the team but they just banned him. That’s another legal issue there – whether he could do that. But what it comes down to also is, if they get three-fourths of the remaining owners to vote that they want to kick him out of the league, they can – which is kind of crazy, but that’s what the NBA constitution I think is what it’s called says. I don’t know what you want to talk about this because there’s so many legal issues going on but I assume you at least heard about it. NASIR: Yeah, there are a ton of legal issues here but one legal issue that I think is missing that I think people are talking about but is just not there – is it legal to be a racist? The thing is you can. Everyone’s talking about, oh, like, some kind of labor law, discrimination or anything like that. First of all, understand that there’s no allegations that he took action or some kind of discriminatory act. It’s just these comments are, of course, reprehensible in itself. But the point is that there’s no labor law violation. There’s no statute that he’s broken. The reason it’s a legal issue is because there’s some contractual obligations that he has to abide by under what Matt described as this NBA constitution which the name in itself is kind of funny to me but oh well… And so, that’s really the issue here. Did he violate the constitution? If he did, what can they do about it and can the rest of the owners – was it three-fourths or two-thirds’ vote? MATT: Three-fourths, yeah. NASIR: Three-fourths – can they basically kick him out of the league by forcing him a sale. I think there is some kind of provision but I’m not sure how clear it is – whether his actions or his comments here warrant such an action under the constitution – the NBA constitution that is. MATT: I’m glad you brought that first point up because it really isn’t being talked about. Obviously, all the things he’s done are terrible and he shouldn’t be involved in the league.