BREAKING: Zion Williamson files emergency motion with Third District Court of Appeal seeking to stay the entire Florida court action against him, citing prior lawsuit in North Carolina involving same parties and claims. If granted, would stop all discovery in the Florida case. 
“Here, a stay pending appeal is warranted to prevent the Circuit Court from exercising jurisdiction over Williamson while this appeal is pending as to whether there is jurisdiction over Williamson & where there is a first-filed action pending in federal court in North Carolina.”
“Indeed, that would defeat the very purpose of this appeal, and this Court has held that it is an abuse of discretion to deny a request for a stay when a first-filed action is pending in another State.”
"It is an abuse of discretion to refuse to stay a subsequently filed state court action in favor of a previously filed federal action which involves the same parties and the same or substantially similar issues.” OPKO Health Inc. v. Lipsius, 279 So. 3d 787, 791 (Fla. 3d DCA 1991)
“As this Court put it in a case involving the hockey player Sergei Fedorov, a party is materially or irreparably harmed if he is forced to litigate the same case in two separate states, making it ‘an abuse of discretion to refuse to stay a subsequently filed state court action.’”
“That Fedorov played hockey while Williamson plays basketball is about the only thing distinguishing this case from that one.”
“The respect owed to sister courts demands that the first-filed forum be permitted to coordinate the development of the case and superintend discovery.”
“The idea that a FL court would be permitted to jump the gun and order discovery when a fed court first exercised jurisdiction over this action is particularly inappropriate where Williamson is seeking to show the FL court cannot properly exercise jurisdiction over him at all.”
“Mandating party discovery in this 2nd-filed action effectively usurps the federal court’s authority in the 1st-filed action to determine whether or to what extent discovery is warranted, or whether the dispute can be resolved as a matter of law based on undisputed facts.”
“To make matters even worse, the Plaintiffs’ first discovery requests are not merely premature, but they are also irrelevant and invasive, designed as a fishing expedition aimed at tarnishing Williamson’s reputation.”
"In particular, the Circuit Court’s ruling allows Plaintiffs to go forward with numerous requests that relate to whether individuals other than Williamson received gifts in exchange for influencing Williamson to attend Duke and regarding the ownership of Williamson’s residence.”
“They seek that discovery to support an argument that Williamson was not eligible to be a 'student athlete' protected by the UAAA when he was playing basketball at Duke.”
"The UAAA protects as a ‘student athlete’ any person who ‘engages in, is eligible to engage in, or may be eligible in the future to engage in any intercollegiate sport.” N.C. Gen. Stat. Ann. § 78C-86(11)
“As the ‘or’ makes clear, the UAAA protects any person who at the time was, in fact, a 'student athlete' -- [defined as] any person who was 'engage[d] in' a college sport -- without regard to a retroactive inquiry into his eligibility."
"And it is undisputed that Williamson, in fact, played college basketball for the 2018-2019 season. That is accordingly sufficient to entitle him to protection as a 'student-athlete' under the UAAA, regardless of any of the information the Plaintiffs seek about his eligibility."
"Plaintiffs’ attempt to retroactively dig up dirt on Williamson would also undermine the very interests the UAAA is drafted to protect: It would transform the UAAA from a shield for people who are, in fact, student athletes into a sword for damaging their reputations.”
