ST. LOUIS — If the case makes it to trial next year, the relocation lawsuit against the National Football League, the Rams and club owner Stan Kroenke will take place in St. Louis.
After a closed-door hearing Tuesday during which lawyers for the NFL, Rams and Kroenke sought to move the closely watched suit elsewhere, Circuit Judge Christopher McGraugh reopened his courtroom to the public and rejected that request.
The judge questioned why the defendants in the 2017 lawsuit over the football team’s departure to Los Angeles waited until months before the January 2022 trial date to seek a change of venue. He said they failed to prove prejudice against them and that most of the news articles submitted as examples of extensive, unfair pretrial publicity were from years ago and primarily opinion pieces that were not necessarily fact-based.
