Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Judge rules NFL team not liable in Minxx shooting case

A local bouncer paralyzed during a February 2007 melee that involved football star Adam “Pacman” Jones has sought to hold the cornerback’s team – the Tennessee Titans – partially responsible, but a District Court judge today didn’t agree.

Judge Jessie Walsh quashed the lawsuit filed against the Titans by Las Vegas resident Tommy Urbanski, saying the incident during the NBA’s All-Star weekend had “nothing to do with the Titans.”

“I’m disappointed,” Urbanski said. “I think (Walsh) already had made up her decision.”

The matter probably isn’t over; Urbanski’s lead attorney, Matthew Dushoff of Las Vegas, said he plans to seek a re-hearing and, if necessary, to appeal the decision.

Attorneys for Urbanski, who was shot in the ninth thoracic vertebra, argued the Titans were negligent in their handling of Jones. The team, Dushoff noted, has the power to discipline its athletes -- and Jones had already been arrested multiple times before the incident here in February at the Minxx nightclub.

Titans representatives, however, say the team doesn’t hold their players on leashes.

Dushoff also tried to convince a judge that the team, despite being incorporated in Delaware and based in Nashville, has several legal and financial connections to Nevada: residents can buy Titans tickets for games and merchandise on the Web, or watch their games on national television or hear them broadcast on syndicated radio. The team’s scouts, Dushoff added, routinely observe athletes at universities in Nevada.

That argument is relevant, Dushoff contends, because he believes Jones would never have been invited to the Minxx had he not been a member of the Titans.

Walsh appeared unmoved by that argument.

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