With the future in mind and seeking arbitration for a minor disagreement in the way the corporate affairs of the Salt Lake Trappers baseball team are conducted, the club has filed suit in the Third Judicial District Court of Salt Lake County against five of its owners.
"It's a little housekeeping. We're getting ourselves more organized," says Jack Donovan, president of the Trappers' board of governors and the man who owns the largest percentage of Trapper stock. "There isn't even an issue at stake," added Donovan by phone from his Mesa, Ariz., office.The suit names Donovan, Marvin S. Goldklang of New Jersey (9.83 percent owner), actor Bill Murray of New York City (8 percent), player personnel director Van Schley of Malibu, Calif., (13.83 percent); and attorney Mark Van Wagoner of Salt Lake City (2.33 percent) as defendants, with the Trappers as plaintiffs.
The suit asks that a Shareholders Agreement that came into being in June 1989, when Goldklang purchased part of the Trapper stock, be declared by the court to be null and void.
Donovan says that, "within the last year," when the Trappers decided to elect a board of governors and conduct business in a more formal and proper way, they realized the board and the Shareholders' Agreement could conflict. Some owners wanted the board to have the last say, some wanted the Shareholders' Agreement to apply.
Donovan, Goldklang, Schley and owners Steve Butterfield and Arte Moreno, both of Phoenix, are the board members. There are 16 owners.
"What the disagreement is over is mechanics," Donovan says. "None of us could make that decision, so we want to have somebody else determine it. It's a way of eliminating hard feelings or anybody getting their feathers ruffled," Donovan says. "We never have yet had a vote on any issue where there was an argument," he adds - except for how much money would be spent on an opening-day party.
As for the pending outcome of the suit, says Donovan, "Whichever way it goes, we live by it, and everybody agreed to that. If this thing (Shareholders' Agreement) is good, then we live by it," Donovan says.