From the California Department of Industrial Relations Labor Commissioner in Creative Artists Agency v. Steele, handed down in August but just posted on Westlaw (for more on Steele's lawsuit against ESPN, see this post and this later article about the case being settled):
Creative Artists Agency, LLC ("CAA") filed a Petition on September 14, 2022. CAA alleges that … Sage Steele … failed to pay commissions for a procured multi-year television hosting contract with ESPN….
This case involves whether CAA did enough to protect Steele's interests in a public relations crisis. Steele appeared on a podcast and stirred controversy through her comments. CAA stepped in to negotiate with her employer. After a week of back-and-forth, CAA secured an optimal result: Steele kept her lucrative job, without suspension or dock in pay, for the remaining 32 months on her contract. But it came at a cost: she apologized to make peace.
Steele then learned about her free speech rights and saw a missed opportunity. She contends that CAA failed her at this critical moment by not exploring a way forward that avoided an apology. In her view, CAA walked away from both its promise and its duty to her. She concludes that CAA should have done better, so she did not have to pay what she promised to pay. Accordingly, she stopped paying commissions.
But CAA met Steele's stated goal at the time—to preserve her job. And Steele's retrospective view of what CAA should have done stretches beyond the deal they made.
Steele is not excused from her end of the bargain….
