The court case between WWE doctor Amann and CM Punk appears to be costing Punk a lot of money. According to court documents obtained by Chris Harrington at Fightful.com, World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. has submitted an application for half of the $241,007 in attorney fees and costs to be paid by Phil Brooks (CM Punk).
On February 2017, Brooks and Scott Colton served WWE with a subpoena for “all communications and other documents on topics related to this case. In June 2017, WWE counsel submitted an application for expenses that “WWE was forced to incur in connection with responding to the subpoena” of $241,006.52.” There was a Judge had previously ordered that WWE and Brooks would split 50/50 “reasonable attorney fees and other reasonable expenses incurred by WWE in connection with the foregoing response to the Subpoena.” Therefore, that means that Punk would have to pay WWE $120,503.26.
Punk has objected to the expense and his filing claims that WWE included “expenses for resisting the subject subpoena and for other work that could not benefit Brooks” and “expenses for time entries that are excessive for the task performed.”
Punk’s side has requested that the “the Court find that the reasonable costs of compliance are 33% of the expenses claimed, and issue a fee award accordingly.” In other words, he is proposing to pay just $39,776.
The lawsuit, filed on February 2015 by WWE’s senior ringside physician, Dr. Chris Amann, was filed against Brooks and Scott Colton (Colt Cabana) and Amann is asking for “compensatory damages in an amount in excess of $1,000,000, punitive damages in an amount to be determined at trial and such other relief that the Court deems just and appropriate.” This all stems from what was said on Cabana’s podcast just a few months after Punk departed WWE.
If you are wondering why this lawsuit has continued and if Punk’s comments have really affected his reputation, as claimed in the lawsuit, well, here is what Amann has claimed in the suit:
He says that his medical malpractice carrier “has increased his insurance premium approximately 63%, quadrupled his deductible, and his policy has less favorable terms including, without limitation, the elimination of his right to consent to settle any future claims” and other carriers “have declined to offer coverage to Amann as result of the statements published by Brooks and Colton or have offered coverage only on terms even less favorable.”
Amann is also claiming that he’s been suffering from anxiety, stress, and loss of sleep and weight/muscle mass because of the public statements from Punk. He also says that he is still feeling the effects at his job in WWE from Punk’s statments and feels that it would be difficult to obtain a job promotion. Furthermore, he cited Kevin Steen (Kevin Owens) as asking him once if he had committed the acts of omission contained in Brooks statments against him. Basically, he is saying that the statments made by Brooks have hurt his repuration at his job.
There’s a ton more details on the lawsuit in Harrington’s article (which I highly recommend that you read by clicking here).
There’s been a ton of news in the last 48 hours. Click on the links below if you’d like to catch up on some of the top stories:
- Get all the updates about Ric Flair’s current health situation here
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- Daniel Bryan wrestling again