Dan Snyder v. Atalaya Capital Management, Creative Loafing Inc and Washington City Paper

Team:
Ali Toumadj
Spencer Wolf


On February 2, 2011, Dan Snyder, the owner of the Washington Redskins, filed

a lawsuit against the Washington City Paper. More specifically, the lawsuit was filed

against the company who owned and ran the paper, Atalaya Capital Management LP,

Creative Loafing, Inc. The lawsuit was filed because Dan Snyder was unhappy about

an article published by Dave McKenna back on November 19, 2010. The article was

titled, “The Cranky Redskins Fan’s Guide to Dan Snyder.” As most people can imagine

from the title, the article did not portray Snyder in a very positive manner. What irritated

Snyder more so than anything else was the fact that the article included false material and

information about him. When the lawsuit was originally filed in February, the paper and

the company were the only litigants, the defendants in a civil case. However, on April

26, 2011, when the lawsuit’s venue shifted from New York to Washington D.C., Dave

McKenna was added as a litigant.

The lawsuit was filed in the New York Supreme Court for New York County.

When the lawsuit shifted in April 26, 2011, Snyder filed a second complaint in the

Superior Court of the District of Columbia. As for the present status of the case, Dan

Snyder dropped his lawsuit against Dave McKenna and the Washington City Paper on

September 10, 2011. He dropped the lawsuit on the night before the Redskins’ season

opener at Fed Ex Field. Many people believe the two incidents were related and that

Snyder did not want any distractions going into the season.

What Mr. Snyder was asking for in his case was some sort of damages. He

claimed that he suffered “not less than one million dollars” including damages to his

reputation, shame, standing in the community, etc. Snyder asked for exemplary or

punitive damages to punish or set an example of the defendants. As mentioned earlier,

the main issue in the case was that Snyder was unhappy about the false material in the

article. Furthermore, he believed that the article used false information to purposely shed

him in a very bad light.