Paywalled, sorry! The link below may work for some of you, however.
Hans Niemann’s $100 Million Lawsuit Over Chess Cheating Allegations Is Dismissed
A federal judge dismissed a claim by the U.S. chess grandmaster against former world champion Magnus Carlsen and others over allegations that Niemann had cheated in competition
USA Today story doesn’t appear to be behind a paywall.
Interesting that only part of the lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice, meaning parts of it could be refiled elsewhere.
This webpage: Niemann v. Carlsen, 4:22-cv-01110 – CourtListener.com contains all of the filings related to Niemann’s lawsuit. The entry dated June 27, 2023 provides the text of the dismissal.
The part of the suit which was dismissed with prejudice was the antitrust claims (particularly allegations of Sherman Act and Clayton Act violations). As these claims derive from federal laws, the federal court considering the cause federal question jurisdiction over said claims and decided accordingly on the merits. It essentially found that Niemann failed to allege conduct that violate these antitrust statutes. It also pointed out other defects, such as Niemann’s failure to allege that chess.com possessed sufficient market space of the competitive chess market, which would be fatal to his claims even if he alleged violative conduct. Thus, there is no factual matter to be decided by a jury and this portion of the suit could be dismissed with prejudice.
The rest of Niemann’s claims (i.e., libel, slander, tortious interference with contract or business expectancies, civil conspiracy and breach of contract) were all state law claims. As such, federal question jurisdiction was unavailable. Through the discovery process, it was found that one or more indirect owners of chess.com (apparently, hundreds or thousands of investors indirectly own chess.com) are inhabitants of Connecticut, of which Niemann is also an inhabitant, and therefore his claim of diversity jurisdiction was destroyed. Although the Court could have kept the case in federal court through supplemental jurisdiction, it declined supplemental jurisdiction and so it dismissed the rest of the suit without prejudice. As the Court explained, supplemental jurisdiction is usually declined where all federal questions have been dismissed, which occurred in this case.
Importantly, while the Court decided the antitrust claims on the merits, it did not weigh in on the viability of the state law claims at all, and indeed, it explained its dismissal thereof in a single paragraph. Thus, what the Court’s decision amounts to is a rejection of the antitrust claims and a determination that the rest of the suit should be decided in state court, rather than federal court. It may be reasonably presumed that this will be the case, and so the litigation will continue.
The antitrust claims sounded like a bit of a reach to me, otherwise it should probably have been a state court suit all along.
I watched this with interest as both a chess enthusiast and an alumnus of Axinn, Veltrop & Harkrider LLP, Carlsen’s law firm.