The Golden State Warriors left Oakland but cannot leave the city and Alameda County on the hook for approximately $49 million, the state appellate court ruled Tuesday.
Since 2018, the Warriors and the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority have been locked in a legal dispute over who is obligated to pay off bond debt incurred from upgrades to Oakland Arena, formerly Oracle Arena.
Already, an arbitrator and lower court judge ruled in the authority’s favor, dismissing the Warriors’ argument that once the team left for San Francisco, the debt was no longer their problem. The First District Appellate Court, in a 21-page decision issued Tuesday, affirmed those decisions.