Sonics seek to pay $10 million to buy out lease

SEATTLE – Seattle has already rejected owner Clay Bennett’s $26 million offer to take his SuperSonics to Oklahoma City immediately.

Now the Sonics are trying to make that deal look sweet compared to what could be coming.

Seattle’s oldest professional sports franchise is seeking to break the final two years of its lease at KeyArena by paying the city no more than $10 million – $5.9 million for the 2008-09 season and $4.1 million for 2009-2010 – which the team believes would satisfy the rental agreement with the arena. That is one of the new key assertions in the trial brief filed for the team’s upcoming court battle with the city of Seattle.

The Sonics’ brief states they lost $30 million this past season when they were 20-62, their worst record. It also asserts the team’s dispute with the city is a garden variety tenant-landlord impasse that should not require “specific performance.” The city, which also filed its brief Wednesday, argues the lease explicitly requires “specific performance” – that is, the Sonics need to play in KeyArena until 2010.

U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman is presiding over the non-jury trial that is scheduled to begin Monday and wrap up June 26. Pechman issued a statement Thursday that she will not issue a verdict on the final day. She will first take time to finish a written verdict, which she will read in open court.

“Leases are generally not specifically enforceable,” reads the first sentence of the Sonics’ trial brief. “Damages in the form of rent make the landlord whole.”

The city counters in its brief that if the Sonics leave early, it will lose intangible benefits, such as civic pride, that can’t be quantified or paid off like rent. And “specific performance” is required within the team’s arena lease with Seattle, signed in 1994, which Bennett’s Professional Basketball Club LLC agreed to honor when it bought the team in 2006. The lease is effective through the 2009-2010 season.

“The obligation of the parties to this Agreement are unique in nature; this Agreement may be specifically enforced by either party,” states Section 27, paragraph L of the lease.

Steve Calandrillo, a contract law professor at the University of Washington Law School, said the judge will have to balance the general rule that courts don’t usually grant “specific performance” – meaning they don’t force parties to fulfill contract obligations against their will – with the language of the Sonics’ lease.

“What it all comes down to is, is specific performance available?” he said. “The Sonics are making a compelling case that in lease disputes, specific performance is not appropriate. But the city of Seattle also has the compelling response that the lease calls for specific performance, which is rare.”

The Sonics’ brief states the team’s partnership with the city of Seattle is broken beyond repair.

“The facts show it is time to end the relationship, not continue it by force. Both parties will be worse off financially with forced performance,” the brief said.