> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.urgentmatter.press/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Santa Barbara museum says Beanie Babies billionaire waited too long to sue - URL: https://www.urgentmatter.press/santa-barbara-museum-says-beanie-babies-billionaire-waited-too-long-to-sue/ - Published: 2026-10-05T03:01:28.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-05T03:01:28.000Z - Description: The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History told the Ninth Circuit that Ty Warner did nothing for a decade after it removed his name in 2014. - Author: Adam Schrader - Tags: Law and Crime, #public-access The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History asked a federal appeals court to keep Ty Warner's lawsuit dismissed, arguing the Beanie Babies billionaire let a decade pass after the museum removed his name from its Sea Center. The museum filed its response to Warner's appeal on September 9 with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The brief said Warner's complaint places the breach in 2014, quoting his claim that "the Sea Center reneged on its agreement" that year. He sued in September 2025\. The museum said each of his five claims had a two- to four-year deadline. "But Warner did not sue in 2014\. Nor did he sue in 2015, 2018, or 2021," wrote Robert B. Forouzandeh, the museum's lawyer at Riviera Law Group in Santa Barbara. Warner is asking the appeals court to revive the case or let him rewrite his complaint. His August [opening brief](https://www.urgentmatter.press/beanie-babies-billionaire-lays-out-legal-strategy-in-santa-barbara-museum-suit-appeal/) relied on a 1996 California Supreme Court ruling and a May 2025 letter in which, Warner says, the museum asked him for a $50 million estate gift. Much of the museum's response deals with that 1996 ruling. Warner had cited it to argue that his deadline to sue never started running because he kept treating the naming deal as alive. The museum said that case and a related 1997 case both involved employees who stayed on the job and kept collecting pay. Their continued work is what held off the deadline in those cases, the brief said. ## Sign up for Urgent Matter This article is provided free with the support of paying subscribers. Not ready for a paid subscription? Sign up for a free account today. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. Warner had no ongoing role like that, the museum argued. His part of the deal ended on October 20, 2004, when he paid the $1.5 million in full, the brief said. The museum said Warner's opening brief quoted the 1996 ruling but omitted the next sentence, which ties the delayed deadline to the employee's continued work and pay. Warner's brief "conveniently stops there," Forouzandeh wrote. Applying those employment cases to a donor who finished paying a decade before the breach is "as untenable as it is preposterous," the museum wrote. The museum rejected Warner's argument that each day without his name on the building counted as a new breach, which would make recent years timely. The naming deal had no installment payments, renewals, or provisions treating one period differently from another, the brief said. "It was a single indivisible right, flowing from a single indivisible payment, which the Museum either honored or did not," the brief said. On Warner's two fraud claims, the museum pointed to a passage in his own complaint. It said that, "\[b\]ased on subsequent information received," Warner "could not determine whether the rebranding effort may have been the true reason for removing his name." That doubt should have prompted Warner to seek answers by 2014 or 2015, starting the clock on those claims and his unjust enrichment claim then, the museum argued. Warner said he did not learn the museum's stated reason was false until 2025. The brief also said the museum's true motive for removing the name is irrelevant. It said "Warner breached the agreement due to his criminal conviction and the Museum could have terminated the agreement accordingly." Warner has also asked to add an argument that the museum's misleading explanation kept him from suing sooner. The museum said that would fail as well. It pointed to Warner's complaint, which said he "reasonably believed" the name removal was temporary because the museum never offered a refund. The museum argued that belief was an inference Warner drew from silence and that his complaint cites nothing the museum told him to support it. The complaint describes letters and meetings between the two sides in "the following months" after the museum's June 2014 letter, the brief said. Its next event comes in December 2024, when, the complaint said, Warner "undertook a review of his charitable endeavors." Nothing in the complaint accounts for the roughly 10 years in between, the museum argued. It acknowledged that U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner did not address Warner's three requests to rewrite his complaint when he dismissed the case in January. It argued the appeals court can decide that no rewrite would save the lawsuit. The museum said sending the case back to Klausner would accomplish nothing because "a remand that will only return the same complaint to the same fate serves no one." It also disputed Warner's claim that Klausner's order described the naming deal in two contradictory ways. It said the two passages answered separate questions: when the museum owed its performance, and whether the naming promise could be split into pieces. Warner agreed in April 2004 to give $1.5 million to the Sea Center, a marine science center on Stearns Wharf that was being renovated and had not raised enough money to finish, the brief said. In return, the museum agreed to keep his name on the facility for the life of the building or 35 years, whichever came first, and for at least 25 years. The same agreement gave the museum a way out. "Because of recent prosecutions of certain celebrities, high-profile investors and companies, we reserve the right to terminate the name agreement in the event that Ty Warner becomes subject to or found guilty of such prosecution," the agreement said, as quoted in the brief. Warner was convicted on October 2, 2013, after pleading guilty to one count of federal tax evasion, the brief said. He was sentenced in January 2014. On June 27, 2014, the museum wrote to Warner that it "has exercised its right under paragraph 5" of the agreement. It said it would be removing his name "from the Sea Center facility and all collateral materials effective immediately." Warner wrote back on July 3, 2014, objecting to the decision and noting that other companies still tied their brands to his name, the brief said. The museum said he never asked for any of his money back or threatened to sue over the next decade. In December 2024, Warner's lawyers asked the museum for a "final answer" on restoring his name. The museum replied the next day. "The Museum has no reason to reconsider its decision of 2014," the museum wrote. That letter also invited Warner to talk about "a possible future relationship with the Museum." In its brief, the museum called that "a proposal for new engagement, not reconsideration of the 2014 decision." On May 16, 2025, the museum sent Warner a letter seeking $100,000 a year for the rest of his life and a $50 million gift through his estate, with donor signage offered in return, the brief said. Warner [sued the museum](https://www.urgentmatter.press/beanie-babies-billionaire-ty-warner-sues-santa-barbara-museum/) on September 16, 2025\. Klausner [threw out the case](https://www.urgentmatter.press/beanie-babies-billionaires-lawsuit-against-santa-barbara-museum-dismissed-by-judge/) on January 8, and Warner [appealed](https://www.urgentmatter.press/beanie-babies-billionaire-appeals-dismissal-lawsuit-santa-barbara-museum/) on February 2. The Ninth Circuit sent both sides into confidential mediation but [released the case](https://www.urgentmatter.press/beanie-babies-billionaire-ty-warner-presses-on-santa-barbara-museum-appeal/) from that program on June 16 without a settlement. Warner filed his opening brief on August 10. *Urgent Matter is reader-supported. Please* [*consider subscribing*](https://www.urgentmatter.press/nasa-administrator-questioned-goddard-library-review-emails-show/#/portal) *to support independent arts journalism.*