Will five-time Olympian Kerri Walsh Jennings be part of the AVP Tour when it begins May 4-7?
Considering the three-time gold medalist and Rio bronze medalist filed a lawsuit against the Association of Volleyball Players (AVP) on Thursday, that may very much be up in the air.
According to Law360.com, Walsh Jennings filed a breach of contract suit against the AVP’s tournament operator regarding missed payments to the tune of $150,000 in 2016. The Stanford alum’s player three-year contract with AVP Inc., signed in February 2013, allowed for the company to use her name, likeness and “other indicia” of her identity in exchange for $450,000. That payment was to come in the form of $50,000 payments twice a year in 2013, 2014 and 2015 and a pair of $75,000 payments in 2016.
Walsh states in the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court that she did not receive any payments in 2016, despite fulfilling the terms of the contract, which required her to “make herself available three days per year to shoot public service announcements with mutually agreeable charitable or corporate partners, and to promote AVP at events run by other organizations.”
Walsh Jennings did not compete in the final AVP Tour event of 2016, September’s AVP Championships in Chicago. Walsh Jennings and Ross won four AVP Tour events in 2016: the Huntington Beach Open, the Cincinnati Open, the New York Open and the San Francisco Open.
“We tried to persuade AVP to honor their obligations without filing a lawsuit,” Walsh Jenning’s attorney Alan Jay Weil of Kendall Brill & Kelly LLP told Law360. “They refused, which left Kerri with no alternative but to sue.”
The case is Kerri Walsh Jennings v. AVP Inc., case number BC657250, in the Superior Court of the State of California, County of Los Angeles.
Walsh Jennings has not yet signed an AVP player contract for the 2017 season.
“We’re in contract negotiations and we’re pretty far off right now,” Walsh Jennings told the Associated Press in March.
Walsh Jennings signed on to be a brand ambassador for Lululemon last week.
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