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The debut season of the new Women’s Pro Baseball League ended last month, but the legal battle happening behind the scenes is still playing out.
Last week, WPBL CEO Keith Stein tried to quash a legal action brought by the league’s largest investor, Mina Kim. On Sept. 30, Stein removed Kim from the WPBL’s board of directors and filed a motion to dismiss her case, Front Office Sports reported. Delaware law makes it clear that Kim must be on the board to obtain the information she’s seeking.
On Friday, the judge made a ruling that keeps her transparency case open—for now. The judge said she would wait to issue a final ruling on Stein’s motion to dismiss the case, and gave Kim a week to decide which legal route forward she’ll take.
This summer, Kim filed a books and records request in the Delaware Court of Chancery, a common destination for corporate disputes. Kim—an early investor in the Orangetheory Fitness chain who put $500,000 into the WPBL—wanted more financial records from Stein and the league. Her filings describe “mounting red flags” in the WPBL’s business operations and “improper stonewalling” when she tried to access information.
Stein, a Canadian attorney who co-founded the Pro Padel League and co-owns a Canadian baseball team, has pushed back on Kim’s claims of improper recordkeeping and withholding information. He previously told FOS that Kim “wants more influence I think than a board member is entitled to have.”
The judge assigned to the case, Magistrate in Chancery Danielle Gibbs, laid out Kim’s legal options in her Friday ruling:
Kim could start a separate case to challenge the legality of her firing, in hopes of keeping her current books and records request alive. Kim could also file a new books and records request as an investor, rather than as a board member, although that kind of request can be more limited in scope.
A trial in the case was initially scheduled for Sept. 21 but was moved to papers. The judge hadn’t issued a final ruling before Stein removed Kim from the board.
Gibbs said she would withhold her final ruling on Stein’s motion to dismiss until Kim decides what’s next, and gave the investor until Oct. 9 to chime in. Kim could pursue either or both paths.
Gibbs made it clear that she would not be ruling on whether Stein was right or wrong to remove Kim from the board.
The judge wrote that if she accepts Stein’s motion to dismiss the case, the court “states no opinion regarding the propriety” of Kim’s removal, or any possible challenge to it. “That is beyond the scope of the current proceeding,” Gibbs wrote.
A representative for Kim declined to comment on the ruling. An attorney for Stein did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Also, a legal filing that accidentally became public showed Kim was offered $600,000 to drop her case.
Stein told FOS last month that he owns roughly 65% of the league and invested about $225,000 to get it off the ground. In legal filings, Kim has maintained that no records exist of that investment.
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