Frank McCourt believed Jamie McCourt had a "total disconnect with reality" by believing she could run the Los Angeles Dodgers, an attorney testified Tuesday in a trial to determine if McCourt is the sole owner of the team.
Leah Bishop said Frank McCourt asked her in July 2009 to have a conversation with Jamie McCourt and "talk sense into her." Frank McCourt also told her his wife's presence as an executive in the team offices had brought about a "dysfunctional structure," Bishop said.
Viewer's Guide: The McCourt Trial
Bishop said the 2009 meeting with Frank McCourt lasted about three hours and that he did most of the talking while she took notes. She described him as "distraught and agitated," adding that she had to remind him that she was still also representing his wife and to not say anything he did not want repeated to Jamie.
She said Frank McCourt told her during the meeting that he was not going to sign any versions of a living trust she had drafted for the couple that would make all of their assets community property. She said she had implored them for months to sign at least one of them to avoid probate, which she warned would be difficult and make all their assets public.
Bishop said that two months earlier, she had to turn down Jamie McCourt's request to represent her only and not her husband.
The lawyer said she had grown increasingly frustrated with the couple in the spring of 2009 for not signing any of the living trust documents. She said she told Jamie McCourt that she had two tools at her disposal to get the matters moving: "A civil conversation with Frank and a nuclear bomb."
Bishop said the nuclear bomb reference was meant to tell Jamie McCourt that if she and her husband did not start talking to each other, everything was "going to explode."
Bishop said her representation of the McCourts ended in August 2009. Bishop said that although several family law attorneys called to talk to her on Jamie McCourt's behalf in the months prior to the end of her work for the couple, Jamie McCourt never said she was thinking of getting a divorce.
Day 1 Wrapup
On the first day of trial Monday, an attorney testified that Frank McCourt wanted his now-estranged wife to have equal ownership of the Dodgers when the two discussed estate planning two years ago.
Leah Bishop said Frank McCourt told her to "fix it'' when she explained to him and to Jamie McCourt that the marital property agreement they signed in 2004 appeared to make the team his separate property.
His attitude left Jamie McCourt feeling better, Bishop said.
"She was visibly relieved, like the whole tension went out of the room," the lawyer testified.
Jamie McCourt also told her spouse, "If I'm going to be your life partner, I'm going to be your business partner," Bishop testified.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Scott M. Gordon is presiding over the non-jury trial to determine whether Frank McCourt is correct when he claims he is the sole owner of the Dodgers or if Jamie McCourt's assertion of a stake in the team is valid.
Frank McCourt's attorneys maintain that as a trained lawyer, Jamie McCourt knew the agreement she signed with her estranged husband in 2004 stripped her of any ownership interest in the team.
However, Bishop said it was obvious from her communications with Jamie McCourt that she was confused by Massachusetts divorce law, which she practiced when the couple lived there, and California community property laws.
Bishop said that in August 2008, she presented a revised agreement to the McCourts that would have made the Dodgers the couple's community property. However, the agreement was never signed, she said.
Earlier Monday, Jamie McCourt's lawyer, Dennis Wasser, said the 2004 agreement did not mean his client had signed away her ownership rights in the Dodgers.
Only now that the two are divorcing is Frank McCourt insisting that he alone owns the National League team and that an error in copies of the paperwork showing otherwise should be discounted, Wasser said in his opening statement.
"Frank and his lawyers defrauded Jamie and have defrauded the court,'' Wasser said.
But Frank McCourt's lawyer, Stephen Susman, said Jamie McCourt is an educated woman with a law degree who handled divorce cases in Massachusetts. Therefore, her claim that she did not understand she was giving up her rights in the team is not credible, he said.
In addition, Jamie McCourt, not her estranged husband, is the one who wanted the post-nuptial agreement in the first place in order to protect the couple's property from creditors due to Frank's risky business deals, Susman said.
"She is the first person to try and invalidate a marital property agreement she herself proposed," Susman said.
Jamie McCourt was always hesitant about some of her real estate investor husband's business deals, including the purchase of the Dodgers, Susman said. Her spouse had never owned a professional sports team, and buying the Dodgers forced him to take some financial risks, Susman said.
"When you don't share in the risks, you don't share in the upside," he said.
Frank McCourt signed three copies of the agreement in Massachusetts, where the couple formerly lived, and another three in California, both sides agree. Jamie McCourt signed six copies in Massachusetts.
Jamie McCourt's lawyers maintain the documents her husband signed in California indicated he did not consider the Dodgers his separate property. His lawyers say that was a mistake that was later corrected.
Frank McCourt maintains the agreement gives Jamie McCourt ownership of the couple's six homes and one condominium. He also contends he permitted her to call herself a co-owner of the team only in the "interests of family harmony."
However, Wasser said his client had no intention of giving all of the Dodgers franchise to her spouse.
"Jamie would never have given up her interest and she didn't," he said. "It doesn't make sense."
Jamie McCourt also states in a sworn declaration that "there was never any discussion that only Frank owned the Dodgers or that it was his separate property."
Thomas Ostertag, Major League Baseball's general counsel, is expected to testify that Frank McCourt is the team's sole owner and that his estranged wife has no claim to ownership under baseball rules, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The trial before Gordon is expected to take about 11 days, with a two- week planned break after the first week of testimony.
The divorce case has cast a cloud over the Dodgers since the McCourts confirmed their separation last Oct. 14, one day before the start of the National League Championship Series.
The couple, who married in November 1979 and have four grown sons, separated on July 6, 2009.
Frank McCourt fired his wife as the Dodgers' chief executive officer a day after the team lost the series to the Philadelphia Phillies. She filed for divorce five days after her firing.
The divorce case has led to a perception among Dodger fans that the team is financially hamstrung in acquiring players. Frank McCourt has consistently maintained that the divorce has no bearing on the operation of the team and its acquisition of players.
