UCLA–Rose Bowl Lease Case Returns to Court Tuesday

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge is set to resume a case management conference Tuesday in the lawsuit the City of Pasadena and the Rose Bowl Operating Company filed to keep UCLA football at the city-owned stadium. The case has produced disclosed text messages, a survived challenge to most of the city’s claims and, more recently, reports of possible settlement.

The conference is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Tuesday in Department 833 of the County Courthouse at 111 North Hill Street in Los Angeles. Judge Joseph Lipner postponed a previously scheduled conference to this date while continuing to weigh remaining motions.

For Pasadena, the stakes are municipal as much as athletic. The Rose Bowl is owned by the city, and Pasadena officials have said taxpayers backed more than $150 million in stadium renovations and refinanced roughly $130 million in bonds tied to capital improvements. The lawsuit contends UCLA’s possible departure could cause the city and its residents more than $1 billion in damages.

Pasadena and the Rose Bowl Operating Company sued the UC Regents on Oct. 29, seeking to enforce a lease they say bars UCLA from leaving before it expires. The city maintains the contract, signed in 2010 and amended in 2014, contains no opt-out and requires the Bruins to play home games at the Rose Bowl, where they have played since 1982, and bars home games at any other venue in Los Angeles or Orange counties. The plaintiffs allege UCLA moved toward relocating to SoFi Stadium in Inglewood in breach of that agreement, and later added Kroenke Sports & Entertainment LLC and Stadco LA LLC, entities associated with SoFi Stadium, as defendants for interfering with the lease.

The current lease’s end date is June 30, 2044.

In May, Courthouse News reported that UCLA was “unlikely to shake off” the Pasadena lawsuit.

In early June, Lipner allowed nearly all of the plaintiffs’ claims to proceed — breach of contract, anticipatory repudiation, declaratory relief, breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and tortious interference — while dismissing only a promissory estoppel claim, without leave to amend. He denied UCLA’s anti-SLAPP motion as untimely and unsupported by sufficient cause, without reaching its merits.

The ruling followed Lipner’s earlier decision denying UCLA’s bid to send the dispute to arbitration.

Later in June, reports surfaced of text messages between Kevin Demoff, an executive with Kroenke Sports & Entertainment and the Los Angeles Rams, and then-UCLA Vice Chancellor Steve Agostini. An August message read, “good luck tonight, next year at SoFi!”, and a February exchange discussed touring SoFi Stadium “to see how we would make next season work,” with Demoff replying, “Yes will make whatever work.” UCLA has disputed the plaintiffs’ claims.

Earlier this month, published reports indicated the city and the Rose Bowl had entered settlement talks that would keep UCLA at the stadium through the end of the lease. Reached by Pasadena Now, city spokeswoman Lisa Derderian declined to address those reports, saying, “We cannot comment on pending litigation.”

Tuesday’s conference is a procedural step addressing scheduling and discovery. It does not resolve whether UCLA must remain in Pasadena for the life of the lease.