LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- John Schnatter has himself to blame for his 2018 ouster as the chairman of Louisville-based Papa John’s International, according to the creative agency that Schnatter sued in December for “maliciously” leaking a recording of a conference call in which Schnatter used the ‘N’ word.
247 Group, doing business as Laundry Service, and its parent company Wasserman Media Group asked a federal judge in Louisville to dismiss Schnatter’s lawsuit in a court filing dated Friday.
“Having scored an ‘own goal’ by using vile, racist language, publicly admitting that he had done so, and voluntarily resigning from his positions as an officer and chairman of Papa John’s … John Schnatter now seeks to blame others for his behavior,” Laundry Service and Wasserman Media Group said in the court filing. " ... Schnatter, a public figure, admitted that he used the 'N-word' and other 'inappropriate and hurtful language.' That truthful admission reflects that the only person who bears any responsibility for what occurred is Schnatter."
The defendant businesses also denied a central claim of Schnatter’s lawsuit – that they “leaked” excerpts of the now infamous May 2018 conference call to Forbes, whose July 11, 2018 story triggered Schnatter’s resignation as chairman and subsequent ouster from the company he founded.
But even if the agencies did give the information to the press, their attorneys argue, Schnatter’s lawsuit still fails to assert a valid claim.
“By the logic of the claim, it would be 'outrageous' for anyone to report on another person’s use of 'inappropriate and hurtful language' about race,” Laundry Service and Wasserman Media Group said in the filing. “But there is no plausible basis for such a view. Indeed, the alleged backlash that Schnatter received related to his comments is because civilized society does not tolerate such boorish behavior.”
The businesses also denied Schnatter’s allegation that Casey Wasserman of Wasserman Media Group threatened to “bury the founder” if Papa John’s did not pay his company $6 million. “As a matter of fact, no such statement was ever made by anyone on behalf of Defendants,” according to the court filing.
Schnatter admitted in July 2018 that he used the ‘N’ word during the conference call and apologized for it regardless of the context.
He would later say the comments were misunderstood, and alleges in the lawsuit that Laundry Service relayed them “out of context.”
“I didn’t say anything that was racist,” Schnatter told WDRB in a November 2019 interview, in which he also alleged that he was “set up” by the company’s former management and board of directors. “Sooner or later the tape’s going to come out in public and people are going to go, ‘Wow, that’s what he said?’ … They made this all up. They fabricated it.”
Schnatter’s lawsuit includes his own description of the remarks, which he claims were borne of frustration that an earlier comment he had made in 2017 about the NFL players’ National Anthem protests had been perceived as racist.
According to his lawsuit, Schnatter said:
[W]hat bothers me is Colonel Sanders called blacks n-----s. I’m like, I never used that word. And they get away with it. And we used the word ‘debacle’ and we get framed in the same genre.
The transcript shows Schnatter “did not use a racial slur against African Americans,” according to his lawsuit.
“On the contrary,” his attorneys wrote in the complaint, “he clarified—in this impromptu discussion of race—that it was a term he had never used.”
In a statement issued Tuesday, Schnatter attorney Terence Healy said: “As we have said from the start, we encourage people to look at what John actually said, including when he said that he ‘never used that word.’ No restatement of false claims about racism will change the facts regarding John’s actual words. No reasonable person can read what John said and think he expressed anything inappropriate whatsoever – about either the NFL during the earnings call in 2017 or about racism in the secretly-taped conference call with the creative ad firm in 2018.”
