There was another twist in the legal battle between Michael Oher and Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy on Wednesday when the Tuohys' lawyer, Randall Fishman, announced during a press conference that the family intended to enter a consent order to end Oher's conservatorship.
A former NFL offensive lineman, Super Bowl champion with the Baltimore Ravens and inspiration behind Oscar-nominated film The Blind Side, Oher filed a petition with the Shelby County probate court in Tennessee on Monday to end the conservatorship that Oher believes allowed the family to cheat him out of millions of dollars in profits from the movie.
Oher, 37, claims the Tuohys deceived him into signing the document in August 2004, three months after his 18th birthday, claiming that the family was adopting him before he departed to play college football at Ole Miss.
Oher says he wants a complete account of what the Tuhoys made from his life story. He alleges that they inappropriately portrayed themselves as his adoptive parents while saying he found out in February that the conservatorship didn't provide him the familial relationship to which Oher believed he agreed 20 years ago.
The Tuohys disagree with Oher's interpretation of the situation. Fishman told reporters that Oher called the Tuohys his conservators three times in his 2011 memoir, I Beat The Odds: From Homeless To The Blind Side, and Oher knew the family didn't adopt him.
Oher addressed the conservatorship in his memoir, speaking from the mindset of an 18-year-old excited to play college football in the vaunted Southeastern Conference.
"There was one major event that happened right after I graduated high school: I became a legal member of the Tuohy family. It felt kind of like a formality," Oher wrote in the book. "I'd been a part of the family for more than a year at that point.
"Since I was already over the age of eighteen and considered an adult by the state of Tennessee, Sean and Leigh Anne would be named as my 'legal conservators.' They explained to me that it means pretty much the exact same thing as 'adoptive parents,' but that the laws were just written in a way that took my age into account."
Fishman said during Wednesday's press conference that the Tuhoys entered the conservatorship that Oher believes robbed him of profits from the $300 million-grossing movie about his life was a formality to assuage NCAA concerns about possible recruiting violations since the couple graduated from Ole Miss.
"If that's what he wants to do is terminate it, we're glad to do so," Fishman said. "As a matter of fact, it is our intent to offer to enter into a consent order as it relates to the conservatorship, and then if they have other issues, we'll deal with them.
"There was one thing to accomplish and that was to make him part of the family so that the NCAA would be satisfied because Sean would have been a booster of the university."
The Tuhoys also said the conservatorship was so they could assist Oher in getting health insurance, a driver's license and enrolled in college. Oher saw it as more, according to his book.
"Honestly, I didn't care what it was called," Oher wrote. "I was just happy that no one could argue that we weren't legally what we already knew was real: We were a family."
Uncommon Knowledge
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