Sage Steele Sues CAA for Breach of Fiduciary Duty During Her Free Speech Battle With ESPN (EXCLUSIVE)

variety.com:

Tatiana Siegel Former ESPN anchor Sage Steele waged a high-profile battle with Disney over her right to free speech. Now, she’s going to war with CAA.

Steele is suing her agents of the past 11 years for breach of fiduciary duty over how they handled her contentious standoff with ESPN and its parent company Disney following controversial remarks she made in 2021 about COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

In a lawsuit filed Tuesday morning in L.A. County Superior Court, obtained by Variety, Steele claims that agent Matthew Kramer, the agency’s co-head of sports media, failed to do the bare minimum when she faced backlash from her employer over comments she made about the network’s COVID vaccine mandate on the podcast “Uncut With Jay Cutler.” The complaint says Kramer told his client that he would have the “head of CAA legal” review her contract but instead sent the contract to a junior attorney in CAA’s business affairs department to review.

According to the complaint, the agency “failed to give Steele the legal advice it had agreed to provide her, and failed to advise Steele that she should consult an attorney who was experienced in free speech and employment rights.