Vince McMahon moves for Janel Grant lawsuit to go to arbitration

Vince McMahon has filed a motion to compel arbitration in the lawsuit filed against him, WWE, and John Laurinaitis by Janel Grant.

As expected, McMahon is trying to get the case moved to arbitration, where disputes regarding the nondisclosure agreement would be potentially resolved in private, as opposed to in public court. 

The NDA that McMahon and Janel Grant agreed to contains an arbitration clause. Grant’s complaint previously argued NDA isn’t enforceable.

McMahon says Grant’s “outrageous claims of sexual abuse and coercion are pure fiction—plainly intended to garner publicity—and are flatly contradicted by Plaintiff’s own contemporaneous statements.”

He says he and Grant “engaged in a consensual relationship during which Defendant never coerced Plaintiff into doing anything and never mistreated her in any way.”

Grant’s complaint, filed in January, alleges sex trafficking and graphic details of sexual assault involving McMahon and Laurinaitis. She says that some of WWE’s top executives, including President Nick Khan and Chief Operating Officer Brad Blum, were aware of the relationship between Grant and McMahon.

In the motion, McMahon denies that Grant was grieving from the loss of her parents at the time McMahon and Grant met in 2019. McMahon says Grant’s father passed in 2017 and her mother passed away sometime earlier.

McMahon makes those assertions with reference to a 2017 lawsuit related to the foreclosure of Grants’ parents’ home filed with the New York State Supreme Court.

McMahon says Grant lived with her fiancé in the condo complex she and McMahon lived in.

McMahon says it’s “nonsensical that the disturbing alleged acts” that Grant claims occurred before she “returned to her lawyer fiancé four floors below without incident.”

McMahon notes that he was never contacted by Grant’s fiancé Brian Gonvalves, who McMahon says is a lawyer and executive for TelevisaUnivision, nor was McMahon contacted by anyone at the building, police, any of Grant’s friends, or any lawyer about alleged abusive behavior.

New comments from Janel Grant’s attorney Ann Callis to Wrestlenomics and other outlets, responding to Vince McMahon’s court filing today.

Callis: “Vince McMahon has never known a storyline that he doesn’t twist to fit his own shameful narrative. Her father was in in-home hospice during his final days where Janel continued to care for him around the clock. Prior to his death, she had been caring for her blind, wheelchair-bound mother. Using the grief of someone who lost both of her parents is an all new level of disgusting.”

Callis says at the time of Grant’s relationship with McMahon, Grant wasn’t dating Brian Gonclaves, who McMahon mentions in the filing.

Callis: “Her ex-boyfriend allowed her to stay in the apartment as she rebuilt her life and resume post-taking care of her parents. She had no job and no other financial support to lean back on.”

McMahon’s side argues that the court should put this lawsuit on hold while the action moves to arbitration. The NDA was signed by McMahon personally but he also signed for WWE. McMahon’s attorneys say that the other two defendants, WWE and Laurinaitis, should also be compelled to arbitration with Grant.