Investor’s multimillion-dollar lawsuit against Tony Finau has been dismissed by a Utah County judge — at request of both parties
Tony Finau watches his putt on the fourth hole during the final round of The Sentry, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025, at Kapalua Plantation Course in Kapalua, Hawaii. | Matt York, Associated Press
In golfing parlance, Salt Lake City businessman and investor Molonai Hola is asking for a mulligan in his nearly five-year-old quest to get millions of dollars from Utah sports icon and PGA Tour star Tony Finau and his family through the legal system.
Hola has claimed since he filed a lawsuit in 2020 that the Finaus owe him around $600,000 in unpaid loans, an additional $300,000 for consulting services, and 20% of the career earnings of brothers Tony and Gipper Finau, who he says he bankrolled from 2006-09 to get their professional golf careers started when they were teenagers.
But the lawsuit has been dismissed, and Hola is now taking a different, somewhat unusual, course of action.
Having twice turned down offers of $300,000 from Tony Finau to settle the multi-million dollar lawsuit that primarily targets Tony Finau’s earnings, Hola and his attorneys have decided to appeal the case to the Utah Supreme Court.
Tony Finau, 35, has made upwards of $60 million during his professional golf career, according to Spotrac.com, while Gipper Finau, 34, has made a negligible amount in the sport.
At the request of both parties, 4th Judicial District Court Judge Shawn R. Howell dismissed the lawsuit “without prejudice” on Jan. 7. That was one day after Hola’s attorneys filed a Stipulation of Dismissal in conjunction with Finau’s attorneys, court records show.
Without prejudice means that Hola can re-file the lawsuit at a later date, or take the case to another court.
“The case is hereby terminated, each part to bear its own fees and costs,” ruled Howell, who was assigned the case last fall when the original arbiter, Utah County Judge James Brady, retired a half-year earlier than planned upon being diagnosed with bone cancer.
The eight-day jury trial that was scheduled to begin on Feb. 19 has been canceled, obviously.
“We’re starting fresh,” said Hola, a former University of Utah football player and one-time candidate to be mayor of SLC. “We’re starting over. … I had to make this decision, after discussing it with (attorneys). The deal that we made (in 2006) for me to fund Tony’s career is legitimate. I met with the family. We had a deal. I said, ‘If you give me a percentage (or your earnings), I will fund this thing.’ That is a contract.”
Why is Molonai Hola suddenly going in a different direction?
Hola’s attorney, Joshua Ostler, released the following statement Tuesday after having been contacted late last week with questions about the decision to have the original lawsuit dismissed and appeal it to a different court:
“Mr. Hola has consistently maintained his desire to have his day in court where he can present all the facts and have his claims fully (not partially) heard. As the trial approached, it became clear that Mr. Hola’s case would be limited,” Ostler’s statement reads. “Rather than proceed with a partial trial, Mr. Hola elected to appeal his case to the Utah Supreme Court. He is confident that, following the appeal, his claims will be fully heard by a jury of his peers.”
Hola: Finau’s settlement offer ‘a slap in the face’
One of Finau’s attorneys, Stewart O. Peay, confirmed Friday that all of the original complaints filed in September 2020, which together asked for more than $16 million in unpaid debts and career earnings, have now been dismissed. The most substantial complaint — that Hola was entitled to 20% of the brothers’ earnings — had been dismissed by Judge Brady in 2022, but a claim for “unjust enrichment” (the funds and services that Hola says he provided to the family) had survived until Judge Howell’s order on Jan. 7.
Peay declined to elaborate on whether it is a victory for the Finau family, and Tony Finau’s representatives have declined to make him available for interviews. Gipper Finau and the brothers’ father, Kelepi Finau, were also named as defendants in Hola’s lawsuit.
“Since they are appealing on it, I would rather not make any further comments, and just say that we feel really good about where we are and we will go from there,” Peay said.
The attorney also declined to comment on reasons why Tony Finau was willing to settle the lawsuit out of court for $300,000.
In an email Peay sent to Hola’s attorneys on Dec. 20, which was forwarded to the Deseret News recently, Peay wrote that “my client is willing to renew his offer to settle the case for $300,000.”
In the same email, Peay mentioned that the same offer was made last summer but was declined because Hola’s attorneys told him their client wanted to see how “the recent motions” turned out.
Hola provided Peay’s email to this news outlet and called the gesture “a slap in the face” and “extremely disappointing.”
In one of the recent motions to which Peay referred, the motion for partial summary judgement from Hola to try and get his claim for the contract he alleges guaranteed him 20% of the brothers’ earnings reinstated, Judge Howell denied it just as Judge Brady had done in 2022.
She also dealt Hola’s case a serious blow by denying a couple of witnesses who had been deposed and backed Hola’s version of the agreement the opportunity to testify at the trial. Howell ruled that two of Hola’s key witnesses in the case, talent agent Dieter Esch and Tony Finau’s former caddie, Marcus Burbank, were not relevant to the complaint, court documents show.
“The Court has now rejected the vast majority of your damages claims, precluded your experts and many of your witnesses,” Peay wrote in the December email that included the settlement offer. “Later today, we will file a motion for leave to file an additional partial motion for summary judgment because with your experts’ testimony stricken, it does not appear that you can establish a reasonable value for an hourly rate to Mr. Hola’s alleged consulting services.”
A second lawsuit against Tony Finau was dismissed last February
Hola is not the only former investor to have his lawsuit against the highly successful professional golfer dismissed. Last February, Utah County businessman and part-time filmmaker David Hunter saw his claim for repayment of a $500,000 loan and 20% share of Finau’s earnings and revenues dismissed by the Utah Court of Appeals.
In that complaint, after a 4th District Court judge ruled that the six-year statute of limitations on the claim had run out, Hunter appealed to the three-member appellate court, which upheld the lower court’s ruling.
Like Hola, Hunter says the agreement with the Finau family was signed in 2006.
The two judicial bodies ruled that Hunter’s claims on his contract — originally signed by now-deceased Salt Lake City businessman Steve Gasser — began to run in 2009, when Tony Finau started making a limited amount of money playing golf’s mini-tours, and therefore the statute of limitations on a breach of contract claim ran out in 2015.
Hunter said he did not contact Finau about repayment until 2015 because the golfer had not realized “substantial earnings” until 2014 when he won the Stonebrae Classic on the Web.com Tour (now called the Korn Ferry Tour).
Professional golfer Tony Finau arrives and looks at agroup of protesters gathered at Oakridge Country Club in Farmington to demonstrate against the golfer on Monday, July 29, 2024. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret News
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