prior probability

Yesterday evening, lawyers for the  New York Yankees’ star baseball player Alex Rodriguez filed two complaints in New York State court, one against a local hospital and the team doctor of the Yankees baseball club, and another against Major League Baseball and Commissioner Bud Selig. In this post, prior probability will focus on A-Rod’s 33-page common law complaint against MLB, which you can read for yourself here.

In brief, A-Rod’s lawyers are asserting two causes of action based on the legal theory of tortious interference in their lawsuit against Major League Baseball and Commissioner Selig: 1) tortious or wrongful interference with future business relationships (i.e. loss of prospective product-endorsement contracts) and 2) wrongful interference with A-Rod’s existing multi-million dollar contract with the New York Yankees.

Now, back to our original question: are either of these two claims frivolous?

Lester Munson of ESPN thinks so (read his analysis here). But we say “not so fast.” Why? Because to say that a given legal claim is “frivolous” is just another way of saying that it has a low probability of success. The probability of a legal claim’s success, in turn, depends on a number of variables, such as the identity of the judge assigned to the case, the strength or weakness of the defendants’ legal arguments in their motions to dismiss, and the quality and quantity of evidence produced during the discovery process, among other things.

Given these various variables, prior probability thus thinks it is way too early to say whether A-Rod’s tortious interference lawsuit against MLB and Bud Selig is frivolous or not.

Postscript: There is also the possibility that A-Rod’s lawyers filed their complaint against MLB for strategic reasons, that is, not to win the case on the merits, but simply to improve their bargaining position with the Commissioner to get A-Rod’s epic 211-game suspension reduced.