Family Files Suit Claiming Tom Benson Incompetent to Control New Orleans Saints, Pelicans

The struggle for control of the New Orleans Saints and Pelicans escalated Thursday when family members associated with Rita Benson LeBlanc filed a lawsuit claiming that the teams’ owner and family patriarch Tom Benson is incompetent and is being directed by a manipulative wife and her allies of the sports empire. 

The suit was filed one day after Tom Benson unexpectedly announced plans to transfer future ownership of the clubs to his wife, Gayle, cutting off his daughter, Renee LeBlanc and his two grandchildren, Ryan and Rita LeBlanc.  The lawsuit seeks to block the succession change and presents numerous claims that Benson is mentally and physically unfit to manage his personal or business affairs.  The petitioners (named as Renee, Rita and Ryan LeBlanc) are also requesting an independent board-certified geriatric psychiatrist to examine Benson. 

The suit attempts to paint Gayle Benson as a “gold-digging opportunist who has taken advantage of her husband’s unfit state of health and ostracized family members in grasping for power and riches.”  Petitioners are asking the court to appoint Renee LeBlanc as executor of Benson’s sports and business ventures, with Rita LeBlanc in a secondary position.

See Jeff Duncan and Manuel Torres, Rita Benson LeBlanc, Family File Suit Claiming Tom Benson Incompetent to Control New Orleans Saints, Pelicans, The Times Picayune, Jan. 22, 2015.

See also Jeff Duncan, New Orleans Saints, Pelicans Ownership Shocker: Wife Gayle, Not Granddaughter Rita, Will Control Empire After Tom Benson Dies, The Times Picayune, Jan. 21, 2015.

Special thanks to Sarah Elizabeth Gelfand (George Washington University Law School) for bringing these articles to my attention.