Colt Cabana Suing CM Punk Over Defamation Lawsuit Legal Fees

As noted before, CM Punk and Colt Cabana were sued by WWE’s doctor Chris Amann over defamation claims regarding a November 2014 episode of The Art of Wrestling podcast. The lawsuit and resulting trial concluded in June of this year with a jury ruling in favor of Punk and Cabana.

In an update to this situation, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that Colt Cabana recently filed a lawsuit against CM Punk claiming Punk failed to reimburse his legal fees from the defamation lawsuit. It was also reported that Cabana originally did not want to be involved in the defamation lawsuit and tried to resolve his legal issues with Dr. Amann before being promised by Punk that he would be covering all of their legal costs.

In an email from April 2016 released by Cabana, Punk stated that he would no longer be paying for Cabana’s legal costs and hinted that it was due to undisclosed issues between the two at the time.

“To date, I have spent $513,736 on this Amann lawsuit. My outstanding current bill is at least $300k. Half of all this is yours. Divide the 513,736 by 2 and that is what you owe me and what I expect you to pay me. Starting now I will no longer be paying your bills. You are on your own. Whatever my bill is currently, will be cut in half, and half will be yours. If you choose to make this ugly, that’s fine too. I hope you won’t but I gave up on you doing what is right a long time ago.”

Following this incident, it was reported that Cabana considered seeking separate legal representation for himself before being persuaded by Punk’s legal team, Loeb & Loeb, to retain their services. On March 2017, Punk’s lawyers were reported to have dropped Cabana as a client with Cabana believing it was done on Punk’s advice. Cabana hired law firm Ashman & Stein to represent him afterwards and on the day of the verdict in the defamation trial, Cabana’s lawyers demanded $200,000 from Punk as their legal fees for the case. Punk was reported to have refused their demands.

In court documents filed, it was revealed that Cabana is asking for around $200,000 to cover his legal fees from the defamation trial and another $1 million in punitive and exemplary damages.

Sources: PWInsider, Chicago Sun-Times