‘Ladies night’ lawsuit targets Fresno Grizzlies baseball team. Plaintiffs seek $5 million

Ladies Night at Chukchansi Park could end up costing the Fresno Grizzlies.

Maybe a lot of money.

Harry Crouch and Christine Johnson are suing Fresno’s minor league baseball team for holding a “ladies night” promotion that allowed females free admission to a game last year.

The plaintiffs claim the promotion was blatant gender discrimination and violated a civil rights act.

Seem like a frivolous lawsuit?

Maybe not.

Alfred Rava, the San Diego-based lawyer representing Crouch and Johnson, has won or settled past lawsuits related to similar promotions. Most notably, Rava helped clients reach a $500,000 settlement with the Oakland A’s from a 2009 Mother’s Day promotion.

Fresno-based lawyer Todd Barsotti, who has been involved in some high-profile, gender-discrimination cases in the past himself but has no connections to lawsuit against the Grizzlies, said he believes the plaintiffs have a valid lawsuit.

“I’m sure the Grizzlies had good intentions,” Barsotti said when asked to provide an objective, legal analysis of the lawsuit that the baseball franchise is facing. “But you have to be real careful with things that can seem like discrimination.

“I think the Grizzlies should have run this promotion through counsel before they did that. California is a litigious state and very, very progressive.”

Rava’s clients are seeking $5 million in damages.

Gender discrimination at baseball game?

The Grizzlies did not return messages seeking comment on the lawsuit.

In the court filings, Crouch and Johnson claimed they attended a Grizzlies game on May 25, 2023, when a Ladies Night promotion was held at Chukchansi Park.

Crouch paid $18 for his ticket; Johnson received a ticket that allowed her to sit next to Crouch for free.

The plaintiffs claim the Grizzlies’ promotion violated the Unruh Civil Rights Act, which provides protection from discrimination by all business establishments in California, including housing and public accommodations.

The protections are to prevent people from being discriminated against because of their age, ancestry color, disability, national origin, race, religion, sex and sexual orientation.

Crouch, the lead plaintiff, is President for the National Coalition for Men, which claims to be a civil rights group that “aims to address the ways sex and discrimination affects men and boys.”

In addition, Rava has built much of his career on gender-bias fights.

Rava told NBC 7 San Diego in 2018 that he’s been involved in 300 lawsuits he viewed as gender discrimination-based. He also claimed to have a 100% win rate regarding cases brought under the state’s Unruh Act, according to a Times of San Diego story in 2017.

Rava did have at least one high-profile lawsuit ruling against his favor when in 2007 an Orange County judge stated that the Los Angeles Angels did not discriminate against men when they provided free tote bags to women in a Mother’s Day promotion.

Rava did not return messages left with his office.

He previously told KSEE 24:

“The Fresno Grizzlies’ ill-conceived ‘Ladies Night’ promotion seemingly sexualized female fans by treating them as little more than sexual bait in order to attract men to buy tickets to the game. In doing so, the Grizzlies’ male-dominated front office managed to pull of a rare trifecta of sex discrimination – misogyny, exorsexism, and misandry all at once – by treating female, nonbinary, and male fans unequally based solely on their gender.”

Does ’The Rule of Reason’ apply?

Are Rava and his clients blowing things out of proportion to think a ladies night at a baseball game caused great harm to anyone?

Dan Siegel — an Oakland-based lawyer who has represented past Fresno State coaches in high-profiled, discrimination lawsuits against the university — said he questioned the true motives behind the Grizzlies lawsuit.

“On one hand, I supposed there’s a violation of the law to discriminate in favor of one gender or another in terms of ticket prices to an event,” Siegel said. “On the other hand, it does seem kind of absurd and frivolous. You understand (Ladies Night) is a marketing ploy.

“There’s also what I like to call ‘The Rule of Reason.’ The law should not allow people to do things that are blatantly unreasonable. Pursuing a case like that is blatantly unreasonable and the judge should not allow that.

“But if they’re getting attention, they’re probably getting what they really want.”

To dismiss or not dismiss

The lawsuit initially was filed in July in Fresno County Superior Court.

Then, the case was dismissed in February on the plaintiffs’ requests and refiled March 26 in federal court.

There is an initial scheduling conference set for Oct. 1 in federal court before U.S. Magistrate Judge Stanley Boone.

Other defendants listed in the case are: Grizzles current ownership group DBH Fresno LLC, Grizzlies former owners Fresno Sports and Events LLC, Minor League Baseball, Inc., Unified Board Operations LLC, as well as Grizzlies media spokesperson Jonathan Bravo.

The Grizzlies, who been around since 1998, have been known for wacky but catchy promotions over the years.

The baseball franchise, for one, helped usher in the popular Taco Truck Throwdown that’s become an annual Fresno staple event the past 12 years.

But the minor league franchise also has stumbled with other promotions.

In May 2019, the Grizzlies played a tribute video that equated Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to the likes of North Korea dictator Kim Jong Un and former Cuban president Fidel Castro during what was supposed to be a Memorial Day celebration.

The Grizzlies ran into more trouble in August 2019 when a 41-year-old father died during an amateur taco eating contest at Chukchansi Park. The family of deceased contestant Dana Hutchings tried to sued the Grizzlies, but the case was dropped.

In regards to the latest lawsuit against the Grizzlies, Siegel said that he believes because the federal court is so overbooked because of the number of cases per judge that the case could be dismissed.

“Federal judges are so overburdened with more serious matters,” Siegel said, “I imagine the judges would be pretty annoyed to hear this.”

Barsotti cautioned against immediately dismissing the claims against the Grizzlies.

“The damages are for someone else to figure out,” Barsotti said. “But in terms of whether a Ladies Night violates the Unruh Act, which has been around for a long time, on its face, a promotion like a Ladies Nights, whether it was by the Grizzlies or at a bar or a club, it appears to violate the Unruh Act.

“The Grizzlies might be in some trouble.”