Lakers Family Drama Deepens: Buss Siblings Challenge Jeanie's Trustee Bid!

An ongoing legal battle among the Buss siblings regarding the future ownership of the Los Angeles Lakers continued to unfold with a recent filing submitted to the Los Angeles Superior Court. This dispute pits five of the Buss siblings—Joey, Janie, Jimmy, Johnny, and Jesse—against their sister, Jeanie Buss, the Lakers' acting governor. At the heart of the conflict is a 5-1 vote by the five siblings to sell the family's remaining 17.82% stake in the team, an action Jeanie Buss is actively seeking to block.

The latest 29-page document, filed by Joey and Janie Buss, directly opposes Jeanie's previous petition, which aimed to remove them as co-trustees and void the siblings' vote. The filing outlines three central questions guiding the dispute: who possessed the authority to decide the trust's continuation, what event would trigger its termination, and what actions were required of the Trustee Respondents once that event occurred. According to the filing, the trust's text provides unambiguous answers to each of these points.

The new submission not only asserts Joey and Janie's right to initiate the sale vote—a vote that exceeded the trust's stated requirement of a two-thirds majority for such a sale—but also scrutinizes the extent of Jeanie's powers as a co-trustee and acting governor. This filing follows a comprehensive 36-page opposition submitted on October 7 by all five dissenting siblings. That earlier document argued their collective right to terminate the family trust and proceed with selling their shares to an ownership group comprising Josh Kushner and Bob Iger, following their agreement to purchase the Lakers from Mark Walter at a valuation of $12.5 billion.

Both recent filings serve as responses to Jeanie Buss's August petition, a 97-page document filed through her attorney, Adam Streisand. Her petition aimed to halt the sale of the family's interest to Kushner and Iger, who are reportedly expected to assume control of the franchise subsequent to an NBA board of governors vote in November.

The Friday filing further contends that a 2017 court decision, which mandated trustees to take all reasonable actions to ensure Jeanie's appointment as the controlling owner while the family trust held Lakers stock, became null and void once a vote was cast to terminate the trust for the purpose of a sale. The document emphasizes that the trust does not stipulate its perpetual existence for Jeanie's lifetime, nor does it require the trust to maintain any minimum ownership percentage. Furthermore, it addresses the NBA's requirement for a controlling owner to maintain a 15% stake, clarifying that this specific percentage is absent from both the original trust documents and the 2017 court order.

Another key argument in the new filing highlights that while the family trust explicitly prohibited any sale of Lakers stock during Dr. Jerry Buss's lifetime without his consent, it contains no comparable restriction linked to Jeanie Buss. Critically, the filing asserts that a sale to Kushner and Iger would optimize the value of the trust's 185.59 Lakers shares, benefiting all beneficiaries, including Jeanie.

The document details two specific contractual sale rights secured by the trust when the Walter transaction was finalized in 2025: a 'go-along right,' commonly known as a tagalong provision, and a separate 'put right.' The put right, granted by Walter, allowed the siblings the discretion to sell their remaining shares at the initial $10 billion valuation at which he acquired the majority stake. Conversely, the tagalong provision, established concurrently, enables the siblings to sell their shares to a new ownership group at the franchise's current, higher valuation—in this instance, $12.5 billion—should Walter ever divest his interest. The filing concludes that Joey and Janie's decision to enact a sale via the tagalong provision represented the most economically advantageous opportunity for the trust and all six beneficiaries.

Finally, the new filing argues that Jeanie's petition, which included accusations of contempt against her siblings, is without merit and requests the court to dismiss this claim. The siblings maintain they exercised voting rights explicitly granted to them as beneficiaries, an action they contend cannot constitute contempt or abetment of a fiduciary breach. The filing pointedly observes, “There is deep irony in [Jeanie] alleging that it is [Joey and Janie] who are putting their self-interests first,” adding, “The entire petition [originally filed by Jeanie] is predicated on the notion that rights expressly granted to the beneficiaries by [the trust] should be subjugated to [Jeanie’s] personal interest in remaining controlling owner. [Jeanie’s] hypocrisy should not go unnoticed.”