The widow of the late San Diego Padres owner is suing the team — and by result, her own family — over financial control of the team.
Other allegations, including alleged racist and sexist motives, were made clear in the lawsuit that Sheel Seidler, Peter Seidler’s widow, filed on Monday in the state of Texas.
Sportico reported the news of the significant lawsuit, which also includes an allegation of attempted relocation, on Monday.
“In a lawsuit filed Monday in Texas state probate court, Sheel Seidler claims that Bob and Matt Seidler, two of Peter’s brothers, breached their fiduciary duties as trustees of the Seidler Trust that controls the Padres,” Sportico wrote. “She claims that the two have, among other things, ‘irreconcilable conflicts of interest’ and conspired to sell trust assets to themselves at ‘far-below-market prices,’ as they ‘schemed to solidify their control of the Padres.’”
Among the many claims in the lawsuit, Seidler said her brothers used “racist” and “sexist” ways of communication towards her by her own brother.
Furthermore, one significant detail says that Seidler believed her brothers had planned to conspire to potentially sell or relocate the Padres from San Diego, their longtime home.
Sheel Seidler’s lawsuit over San Diego Padres ownership uses the word “relocate” https://t.co/eWyHTqMVN5 pic.twitter.com/ct72hMgal7
— Evan Drellich (@EvanDrellich) January 6, 2025
“Strikingly, Matt as trustee has refused to commit to maintain Sheel’s Martial Trust’s Status as the largest single shareholder of the Padres, raising the specter that the team she helped build with her husband could be taken away from her family.
“Indeed, Matt’s efforts to promote his brother John as Control Person and to block Sheel may well be part of his efforts to sell, and perhaps relocate, the team, over Sheel’s strident objections,” the lawsuit read, via a post by The Athletic’s Evan Drellich.
It’s quite possible that things could get uglier from here in this already messy and entangled lawsuit. For everyone’s sake, the Padres and their fans come out of this better.
About Chris Novak
Chris Novak has been talking and writing about sports ever since he can remember. Previously, Novak wrote for and managed sites in the SB Nation network for nearly a decade from 2013-2022