Vince McMahon files motion to compel arbitration in Janel Grant lawsuit

Vince McMahon's legal team contends a binding arbitration clause exists in the NDA Janel Grant signed in 2021. 

McMahon filed a motion in the District of Connecticut on Tuesday to compel arbitration of Grant's lawsuit. This means McMahon is asking the court to recognize the arbitration clause and send the matter to private arbitration hearings with an independent arbitrator rather than litigation. 

"Typically, a party makes this motion when it believes that mere mention of the evidence during trial would be highly prejudicial and could not be remedied by an instruction to disregard," reads a description of this type of motion via Trellis Law. 

Today's filing by McMahon's team reads:

By publicly filing her salacious, false and defamatory Complaint, Plaintiff has brazenly and intentionally violated a binding contract to arbitrate.

The filing continues to allege McMahon and Grant engaged in a consensual relationship and references the "love letter" she wrote to him in 2021 as proof of this. 

Contrary to Plaintiff’s false allegations, Plaintiff and Defendant (collectively, the “Parties”) engaged in a consensual relationship during which Defendant never coerced Plaintiff into doing anything and never mistreated her in any way. In fact, in a love letter Plaintiff wrote to Defendant shortly before the Parties ended their relationship, Plaintiff described Defendant as “[m]y best friend, my love and my everything,” praising him for being the “wonderful, tender, vulnerable, heart-on-your-sleeve soul you really are.” It is incredulous that Plaintiff, a then 42-year-old woman who claims on her resume to have a law degree from Pace University, would have written these words to Defendant months after all the events in the Complaint of alleged abuse, coercion, and “sex-trafficking” took place.

Several paragraphs in the filing refute claims in Grant's lawsuit that she was in financial difficulties or was a full-time caregiver leading up to her relationship with McMahon. 

At the time the Parties met in 2019, Plaintiff was not “dealing with profound grief [from her parents’ deaths] and struggling financially” as described in her Complaint and she had not been “devoting years to around-the-clock caregiving” of her parents.

Those statements are complete falsehoods. Based on a foreclosure action against Plaintiff and her parents, Plaintiff’s father passed away on April 18, 2017—two years before Plaintiff met Defendant – and his marital status was recorded as “widowed” confirming Plaintiff’s mother had passed earlier.

The filing also notes that Grant was living with her fiance during the time of her relationship with McMahon and that both parties were aware the other was involved in other romantic relationships.

During the Parties’ consensual relationship, Plaintiff and Defendant knew that the other was also involved in other romantic relationships. Plaintiff was living in Park Tower, a luxury multi-million-dollar building in Stamford, Connecticut with her long-time fiancé, attorney, Brian Goncalves.

Plaintiff and Goncalves lived in the same luxury building as Defendant—just four floors below—when the Parties began their affair in 2019. Plaintiff would often visit Defendant at his condominium at all hours, including at 2:30 a.m., to pursue their affair and then return back to her condominium with Goncalves the same night.

The filing then notes both parties agreed to end their relationship in 2022 and an NDA was drawn up and signed. The agreement includes a clause that states disputes would be resolved through arbitration. 

In fact, because the Parties wished to “preserve the confidential and private nature” of any disputes under the Agreement, they specifically provided in the Agreement that disputes would be resolved through arbitration. Plaintiff was represented by a lawyer who negotiated the Agreement for her before she executed it.When Defendant learned that Plaintiff, despite her promises, had violated the Agreement by wrongfully disclosing both the existence of the Agreement and their relationship, he exercised his contractual right to withhold payment otherwise owed under the Agreement.

In response, Plaintiff sought to harm him. She intentionally violated the enforceable contract with her salacious, false and defamatory public filing. However, the FAA and binding United States Supreme Court precedent—and Plaintiff’s own agreement—require that if Plaintiff wishes to proceed with her fictitious claims, she must do so in arbitration, not in this Court, and that this action be stayed pending arbitration.

The filing continues to refute all allegations against McMahon. It concludes:

When the Complaint’s allegations are adjudicated in the proper forum (arbitration), witnesses are called to testify under oath, and all communications between the Parties (including those authored by Plaintiff which she intentionally did not share in her Complaint) are produced, the allegations and claims will be disproven and Plaintiff will be exposed for the liar she is. Meanwhile, for the foregoing reasons and as set forth further below, Defendant’s motion should be granted.

The arbitration clause in Grant's NDA, as written in today's filing by McMahon, reads:

In the event of any dispute arising under or out of this Agreement, its construction, interpretation, application, performance or breach, the parties agree to first attempt to resolve such disputes informally and prior to taking any formal legal action to resolve such disputes. In the event any such dispute cannot be resolved informally, all parties hereto agree that the sole and exclusive legal method to resolve any and all disputes and/or controversies is to commence binding arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act pursuant to the procedures of the American Arbitration Association and to do so by sealed proceedings which preserve the confidential and private nature of this Agreement. The parties agree to discuss the venue for any such arbitration proceeding if and when such a dispute arises which cannot be informally resolved; but in the event the parties cannot agree on a venue then the exclusive venue for any arbitration proceeding shall be in Stamford, Connecticut. The prevailing party, as determined by the arbitration tribunal, shall be entitled to recover from the non-prevailing party all of its attorney’s fees and costs.