Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam has been ordered to testify in a case against the truck stop chain Pilot Flying J. He has asked an Alabama judge to vacate the deposition order.
Haslam is also the CEO of Pilot Flying J, which is being sued for an alleged diesel fuel rebate scheme.
MORE: Browns problems start with Haslam
Haslam's attorney filed the motion to reconsider late Friday in the civil case of Wright Transportation v. Pilot Flying J after the judge’s order came earlier in the day, according to the Tennessean.
Friday's order from Circuit Court Judge Sarah Hicks Stewart arrived on the three-year anniversary of the FBI raiding the Pilot Flying J's Knoxville headquarters, the Tennessean reported.
In his brief, Joseph McCorkle Jr. said Haslam’s legal team was "puzzled" by the order because the plaintiff's petition is "riddled with factual and procedural errors." Haslam's attorney's also called the effort to depose the Browns owner a "thinly-disguised effort to obtain discovery to be used in the litigation against him, wherever it ends up."
Wright Transportation, which is based in Alabama, is one of several companies suing Pilot Flying J because of an alleged scam that created fake rebates for customers. The lawsuit, first filed in 2014, says Pilot Flying J "cooked the books in order to give Wright and other customers the false appearance of receiving a discount while in reality Pilot skimmed the money for itself and to pay lavish bonuses and benefits to its officers, managers and employees."
The court is seeking to find out whether or not the company's CEO knew about the fraudulent scheme. Haslam has also resisted orders to testify in other civil cases against the company.
"Of hundreds of cases resolved, this is one of only several unresolved," a spokesman for Pilot Flying J said, via the Tennessean. "There is nothing Mr. (Jimmy) Haslam can add to what has become a prolonged litigation by this company."