Fired From Dodgers Job, Wife Fights Back
Divorce lawyer says Jamie McCourt's fight for Dodgers job may be "untenable."
Oct. 28, 2009— -- It's a major league divorce battle with a couple of sore losers.
Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt fired his team's CEO and wife of 30 years after she began divorce proceedings.
And now she wants her $2 million job back.
Baseball's "War of the Roses" began just before the Dodgers lost the National League playoffs to the Philadelphia Phillies last week.
Frank McCourt threw a curveball at his wife, sending her a formal "notice of termination" posted on Dodgers letterhead, firing her just two weeks before their 30th wedding anniversary.
New York celebrity lawyer Raoul Felder said the case is more like the Cold War and the couple is destined for "mutually assured destruction.
"You get a case like this -- a MAD divorce -- and there are no winners," he told ABCNews.com. "It's a real mess. What's complicated is they both have stakes in the company. This is going to be good viewing. This divorce is going to be a lot of fun."
Jamie McCourt, 55, has filed a complaint with team attorneys that the move was tantamount to workplace harassment.
She is suing for divorce on grounds of irreconcilable differences and, in court documents, she has also asked a judge to give her all the perks that go with the job -- private jet travel, five-star resorts and use of the Dodgers' owners' suite.
Jamie McCourt, 56, also wants $321,000 a month in support if she can get her job back or $488,000 a month if she stays unemployed.
The couple separated in July, when Jamie McCourt asked her husband to move out of their Malibu home. Married since 1979, they have four sons, 19 to 28 years old.
According to Radar Online, the couple met in college and has no prenuptial agreement.
Court documents filed by Jamie McCourt listed their net worth as more than $1.2 billion, including four homes in Los Angeles, two in Massachusetts and a condo in Vail, Colo., as well as ranchland in Montana and property in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
In court documents, Frank McCourt accused his wife of taking a trip with her bodyguard in early July to Israel on Dodgers business, but then traveling to France for 2½ weeks and billing the team.
He also said his wife did not give him information about her assignments as chief executive.
