Just when I thought the Don Imus story was over, there are reports out today that Don Imus is apparently considering suing CBS Radio:
NEW YORK (Fortune) — Don Imus, the tousled and acerbic radio host whose racial remarks engendered a media storm that triggered a swift upending of his career, is not going away quietly even if the imbroglio has all but disappeared from the national conversation in the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre.
For Imus, who made a career out of operating in the murky space between sophomoric humor and high-brow political talk, there is the little matter of about $40 million left on his contract with CBS Radio – whose boss Les Moonves fired the shock jock on April 12. CBS’ lawyers contend Imus was fired for cause and not owed the rest of the money.
But Imus has hired one of the nation’s premiere First Amendment attorneys, and the two sides are gearing up for a legal showdown that could turn on how language in his contract that encouraged the radio host to be irreverent and engage in character attacks is interpreted, according to one person who has read the contract.
The language, according to this source, was part of a five-year contract that went into effect in 2006 and that paid Imus close to $10 million a year. It stipulates that Imus be given a warning before being fired for doing what he made a career out of – making off-color jokes. The source described it as a “dog has one- bite clause.” A lawsuit could be filed within a month, this person predicted.
Assuming that the contract language does in fact say this, then Imus may just have a case. But it’s not a free speech case, it’s a breach of contract case. If that’s true, then Imus may just have a? case. The one problem, though, is that the Rutgers incident wasn’t the first time that Imus said something controversial:
[T]here would be the matter of whether or not Imus ever quietly received warnings for previous offensive racial remarks. And there were several, including once referring to the New York Times African-American sports columnist Bill Rhoden as a “quota hire” and PBS anchor Gwen Ifill, who is black, as a “cleaning lady.”
If that’s the case, then this could turn out to be a slam dunk for CBS.
[...] looks like Don Imus is going forward with the lawsuit against CBS Radio I wrote about earlier this week. More importantly, though, it’s beginning to look like he actually has a very good case: The [...]