Davenports file motion to dismiss case against AHSAA
Published 2:23 pm Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Hours after the Charles Henderson High School girls lost to Ramsay in the Elite 8 in Montgomery, lawyers representing Maori Davenport and her family have filed a motion to dismiss their case against the AHSAA.
“I represented Maori Davenport and our goal was to make sure she stayed on the court for every game that her team played as long as I represented her through the season,” said Carl Cole, attorney for the Davenports. “Unfortunately, that ended a couple of games earlier than we had hoped. I have filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit against the AHSAA. I left the game and talked to the AHSAA lawyers and subsequently filed a motion to dismiss the case, which I expect to be granted before the hearing. That should conclude the matter”
The girls fell to the Rams 44-42 in the championship game of the AHSAA Class 5A, Southeast Regional Tournament Wednesday morning.
Cole said he does not know how the dismissal of the case will affect the games that Davenport has played in since being reinstated under a temporary injunction.
“I do not know how this would affect that situation,” Cole said. “I hope things stand as they are now, but as a practical matter, the season has ended and they didn’t win a championship, so there’s nothing really to take away from Maori. I don’t think it is worth the court’s time to burden the court and waste judicial resources by continuing forward and that made up much of my decision to file a motion to dismiss. We feel like we won because Maori was able to finish the season with her teammates on the court.”
A hearing was scheduled for Friday to determine whether a change of venue was necessary for the case, and a hearing on whether the AHSAA acted inappropriately in their ruling against Davenport was scheduled for Feb. 25 and Feb. 26.