Manly, Stewart & Finaldi’s Morgan Stewart: Quotes on Civil Case Against Bahram Hojreh, USAWP
In the largest-ever legal settlement involving water polo athletes, on Monday the insurer for International Water Polo Club (IWPC) and USA Water Polo, two of the accused in a civil lawsuit filed against former water polo coach Bahram Hojreh, agreed to settle the case for $13.85 million.
For Morgan Stewart, it was yet another victory in a career of doing battle on behalf of clients who have suffered sexual abuse at the hands of coaches or as the result of sports administrators’ negligence.
[SPECIAL REPORT: When Water Polo Play Becomes Sexual Abuse]
A partner with Manly, Stewart & Finaldi, which bills itself as “AMERICA’S LEADING SEXUAL ABUSE LAW FIRM,” this latest case has been personal for Stewart—though his passionate comments suggests he takes all incidents of sexual abuse personally. He and his firm also won a multi-million dollar settlement from USA Gymnastics and it’s insurers, a result of Larry Nasser’s criminal convictions for sexual abuse.
A key consideration in this latest settlement was a decision in April by the California Supreme Court regarding USA Taekwondo. The court specified that national governing bodies (NGB) for sports have a legal responsibility to protect athletes from abuse.
Following are Stewart’s comments on the case against Hojreh, IWPC and USA Water Polo from as early as seven months to this past week, after he orchestrated one of the most significant legal decisions to ever impact polo. His most recent comments indicate that Stewart and his firm are not done; they promise to press USAWP, designated by the United States Olympic Committee as the NGB for the sport in the U.S., on its responsibilities to keep its members safe from harm.
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The following two comments came in a telephone interview between the author and Mr. Stewart last year. Note his damning assessing of USAWP’s lack of insurance coverage for the very allegations his firm is suing the organization for.
- You state—and I don’t know if it’s your opinion or it’s an industry standard—that USA Water Polo is underinsured for “childhood sexual assault/abuse claims, despite a significant membership base.” How did you arrive at this determination?
I know what their coverage is because they produced it. They have very minimal coverage… a few million per year. And why would I say that’s under covered? They've got 35,000 members, so in a given year they’re at risk for claims from one person to hundreds.
If they get a claim for hundreds they are drastically underinsured. And I can do that on a comparison basis with similar organizations that have been sued for childhood sexual abuse. For example, a school district of a similar size or slightly—let’s call it a school district of moderate size, say 20 - 25,000 students—usually those are carrying $25 - 50 million dollars in coverage.
USA Water Polo’s carrying $2 - 3 million in coverage. Smaller school district: $25 million I coverage. In my view, and my argument would be—obviously I’d have to prove this—USA Water Polo’s a non-profit, they figure they don’t have sufficient assets to go after. They purposely underinsure and purposely put the burden and risk on their members versus the risk on them of liability. And keep their amounts purposely underinsured [so] they don’t have to pay high premiums.
If a kid or dozens of kids get abused by somebody in membership, [their response is]: Well, we’re underinsured and we’re a non-profit. That’s their basic attitude and response. We’re underinsured and we’re a non-profit, so you know what: Sorry kids! Sorry you got abused by one of our board members and our members. That’s all we’ve got!
It’s sickening behavior for an organization of their size to say basically: Well, we're not going to get any coverage.
- If you’re saying USAWP is underinsured and that the parties being sued do not have the financial wherewithal to satisfy what might be a substantial judgement, how do your clients find financial compensation?
The answer is: we may go to trial and get a judgement against the individuals and USA Water Polo. If they’re out of coverage then we start going after assets, we start going after other choices of recovery.
The unfair answer is these girls who were abused and failed to be protected become the ones who are holding the bag to an extent for USA Water Polo’s failure to get proper insurance and failure to protect them at the same time.
You mention you were an admin on a club team. Right now, USA Water Polo’s going through a big membership push. I would be looking at them asking: Hey, wait a second. You want my money to fulfil my membership coffers to provide for an Olympic team. Yet, you don’t provide enough insurance to protect my kid from a risk and you failed to protect him in the first place.
It is an ugly scenario. If I had the opportunity to ask Ramsey (if my kids played water polo): You want my membership money but you don't want to protect them. And, you fail to protect them. Why should I ever—and I think that should be true for any parent who’s signing their kid up for USA Water Polo—why should I give you a dime until you can guarantee that you can protect my kids and you can guarantee that you’re going to take action and you’re going to cover that risk.
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Following are Mr. Stewart’s comments to various news outlets after the settlement was announced. The source for each quote is listed after the comment. Noteworthy is how blunt he even after he won his case, how he points to USAWP’s culpability and how misleading their comments were regarding the settlement.
“Children who compete under the auspices of USA Water Polo are not safe from the threat of sexual abuse and will not be until the Board and leadership of USA Water Polo are held accountable. My clients and I will call for a Congressional investigation and enforcement of appropriate sanctions under the Empowering Olympic, Paralympic, and Amateur Athletes Act of 2020 which could include decertifying USA Water Polo as an Olympic Governing Body.”
Statement from Manly, Stewart & Finaldi regarding the settlement (June 7, 2021)
In this same statement, Mr. Stewart said that USAWP’s claim that they only learned of allegations of abuse by Hojreh against his players in 2018 from the Center for SafeSport, the country’s watchdog for abuse against athletes, were “flat out lies.
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USA Water Polo, he said, collects fees and club memberships from the clubs they sanction, “but then they refuse to supervise and they refuse to really train in any meaningful manner these club teams and their president.” That situation “creates an unreasonable risk to minors participating in club programs,” Mr. Stewart said. “You’re going to create an environment that might be ripe for sexual abuse.”
The New York Times (June 7, 2021)
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“(USA) Water Polo agreed to their carrier getting the settlement in return for the case being dismissed against them,” Stewart said. “They don’t get released from the case without the settlement agreement.”
Orange County Register (June 7, 2021)
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“It is a belief that USAWP is never going to police/correct their failures and that someone else needs to do so. You can see it in their statement, they admit no responsibility for what led to Hojreh, and they are not going to change with the present Board and CEO in place.
“Congress has the right to investigate them and if appropriate decertify them as an NGB, which seems the most appropriate if they are not going to undertake to protect children.”
Email to the author (June 8, 2021)