Jury says Denny McLain breached contract with employee

A Livingston County jury reached a quick verdict Wednesday against a former Detroit Tigers player accused of breaching a contract.

A District Court jury returned a verdict in favor of Joe Dobson, who sued former Tigers great Denny McLain for $1,910 for breach of contract.

“The jury made the right decision,” Donald Neville, who represented the plaintiff, said about the verdict Thursday. “Mr. Dobson is entitled to the money.”

Messages to McLain’s attorney, Barry Powers of the Cranbrook Law Group in Bloomfield Hills, were not returned Thursday.

Dobson initially filed his lawsuit in Livingston County’s small-claims court alleging that McLain owed him $1,910 for unpaid wages for a sales job from October to November, but McLain countersued, seeking in excess of $25,000, which moved the case to Circuit Court.

McLain, who reportedly didn’t show for his one-day trial due to a medical issue, alleged Dobson, who assisted McLain with marketing and sales at trade shows, interfered with McLain’s business relationships as well as for conversion and breach of contract.

Following the testimony, Judge Theresa Brennan granted the plaintiff’s request for a direct verdict, and she dismissed McLain’s counter claims.

That meant the jury only considered Dobson’s claim, and within 30 minutes they returned a verdict in favor of Dobson.

Neville expects to submit a motion seeking reimbursement of attorney fees on the counter-claims. He could not immediately say what that bill could total.

McLain has faced difficulties throughout his life since baseball.

McLain, who has won both a Most Valuable Player and Cy Young awards, won 31 games and led the Tigers to the World Series in 1968.

His life took a downward spiral beginning with a 1985 conviction and prison sentence for racketeering, which was later overturned on appeal. After his release, McLain was a talk show host on a Detroit radio station for several years.

In 1996, McLain was convicted and sentenced to federal prison for embezzlement in connection with the theft of money from Peet Packing Co., a company in Chesaning that he owned at the time.

Most recently, McLain, who has made his home in Brighton and Hamburg townships as well as Georgia, disputed an unidentified person’s right to sell autographed baseballs McLain used in 1968 and he was arrested in Port Huron Township in 2011 on an outstanding warrant for theft of more than $1,500 in Louisiana where it was alleged he accepted scrap metal but did not fully compensate the seller.

Contact Livingston Daily justice reporter Lisa Roose-Church at 517-552-2846 or lrchurch@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @LisaRooseChurch.