Dubai: Two fight fans who filed a $5 million (Dh18.4 million) class action lawsuit against Manny Pacquiao have a good chance of success if they can prove that the Filipino boxer failed to disclose an injury before his loss to Floyd Mayweather Junior, sports lawyers said on Wednesday.
“If, with quotation marks and a heavy underline, it can be found that someone was acting dishonestly for financial or monetary gain, I can see no reason out of principle why there cannot be a valid claim,” sports lawyer Philip Williams, of No. 5 Chambers law firm in London, told Gulf News.
The claim will now go to a pre-trial, whereby a judge will review the evidence to decide whether or not there is a case to be answered.
Pacquiao signed a pre-disclosure medical form saying he wasn’t injured before the fight, but then said he had a request for a painkilling injection rejected by the Nevada Athletic Commission (NAC) just before the bout.
“The problem is there seems to be two different versions to the story,” added Williams. “Pacquiao’s camp is saying they informed the NAC of his injury before the fight but the NAC are saying ‘no they didn’t’.
“Until that’s bottomed out, it’s very difficult to say where this will end up. But if the NAC were found not to be informed, then someone’s got some very serious questions to answer.”
Andrew Haywood, a sports lawyer from London’s Pennington Manches law firm, said the timeline to the injury would now become crucial.
“I think there is certainly potential merits for a cause of action, but it’s dependent on the medical knowledge of the athlete and his team at the time when they filled out the pre-disclosure form.
“It could have been a strain or something less severe, something that he had recovered from at the time when he signed the form. It could then have become more severe before the fight. The form is now a matter of scrutiny in medical evidence. The question is whether he misrepresented his position at the time that he filled out the form.”
If the NAC are proven to have known of Pacquiao’s request for an injection before the fight, fans may well pursue the NAC instead of Pacquiao.
However, if the NAC’s knowledge can’t be proven and Pacquiao is found to have lied on the form in order for the fight to go ahead for fear of losing money, the fans’ case against Pacquiao will stand. The NAC can also pursue Pacquiao for perjury for lying on the form.
