FSU is challenging the conference’s exit fees and the validity of a grant-of-rights agreement that binds league members together through their media rights.
North Carolina Chief Business Court Judge Louis Bledsoe III handed down a ruling Friday that puts a stay on all discovery and further court-related work on the case while FSU appeals to the North Carolina Supreme Court. The school is appealing Bledsoe’s earlier ruling that denied the school’s motion to dismiss the case.
Florida State has yet to actually file the case with the NC Supreme Court, but lawyers have indicated that is in their intent.
“Under North Carolina law, the longstanding general rule is that an appeal divests the trial court of jurisdiction over a case until the appellate court returns its mandate,” Bledsoe wrote in his ruling on Friday. “The lower court only retains jurisdiction to take action which aids the appeal and to hear …