In The Circuit Court For The Twentieth Judicial District of Tennessee at Nashville Benjamin T. Zobrist, Plaintiff, - Vs-Byron Yawn,) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) Case No. - Jury Demand
In The Circuit Court For The Twentieth Judicial District of Tennessee at Nashville Benjamin T. Zobrist, Plaintiff, - Vs-Byron Yawn,) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) Case No. - Jury Demand
Rooker, Clerk
BENJAMIN T. ZOBRIST, )
)
Plaintiff, )
)
-vs- ) Case No. ________________
)
BYRON YAWN, ) JURY DEMAND
)
Defendant. )
COMPLAINT
I
INTRODUCTION
Defendant Byron Yawn for breach of fiduciary duty while acting in a confidential
by the Plaintiff. Specifically, the Plaintiff alleges that while acting in his capacity
as pastoral counselor to the Plaintiff and the Plaintiff’s wife, the Defendant usurped
him by the Plaintiff, breached his fiduciary duty owed to the Plaintiff and deceitfully
the Plaintiff’s wife. Plaintiff seeks judgment against the Defendant for both
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compensatory and punitive damages arising out of his breach of fiduciary duty and
II.
JURISDICTION AND VENUE
10-101.
transitory nature, unless venue is otherwise expressly provided for, the action may
be brough in the county where the cause of action arose or in the county where the
Defendant resides.” In this case, the Defendant Byron Yawn resides in Davidson
County, Tennessee.
III.
PARTIES
County, Tennessee.
Tennessee. He may be served with process at the following address: 5448 Overton
IV.
FACTS
professional baseball player having played in Major League Baseball for the Tampa
Bay Devil Rays/Rays, Oakland Athletics, Kansas City Royals, and Chicago Cubs.
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Zobrist played in three World Series, is the winner of the last two and became a
two-time World Series champion in the consecutive seasons of 2015 with the Royals
Crain & Company. During the relevant time period discussed in this Complaint, the
Defendant was the Senior Pastor and Elder at Community Bible Church in
both pastor and elder. In addition, the Defendant, throughout the relevant period
discussed in this Complaint, was the Executive Director of Patriot Forward Charity
Community Bible Church in Nashville, Tennessee, where Byron Yawn was Senior
Pastor.
10. The Defendant, as the Senior Pastor and Elder of the Plaintiff’s
church, not only occupied a ministerial and ecclesiastical role, but also presented
himself to the Plaintiff and his wife as their pastor and one in whom they were
trust, the Plaintiff and his wife submitted to pre-marital counseling with the
the public dedication of their three infant children, and to hold the children up before
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the church congregation with a covenantal pledge to rear them in accordance with
11. Based on repeated assurances from Mr. Yawn, from the pulpit and in
casual meetings with the Plaintiff, that he was sincere in his care for the spiritual
wellbeing of the Plaintiff and his wife and children, and that he was available to
them as a source of spiritual guidance and direction, the Plaintiff came to trust the
Defendant and regard him as one with in whom he could safely confide his most
personal information.
Benjamin Zobrist and his fiancé, and later wife, Julianna Zobrist.
13. Later, in 2007, and again in 2016-2017, Mr. Zobrist entered into
counseling with Mr. Yawn with respect to certain struggles he was encountering
14. In 2011, while acting in the role of the Plaintiff’s pastor and mentor,
Byron Yawn assisted him in preparing a short narrative discussing how he came to
faith in Jesus Christ, called a “Testimony card”, used by the Plaintiff as means of
15. In 2016, the Plaintiff also sought and relied on the Defendant’s
pastoral advice and input regarding daily devotions produced by Baseball Chapel.
16. Both Mr. Zobrist and his wife also regularly sought the advice and
counsel of the Defendant as their pastor and counselor in how to strengthen their
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marriage relationship in 2013, and were involved in counseling offered through the
that he was providing pastoral counseling to Mr. Zobrist, the Defendant also began
with the Plaintiff’s wife for the remainder of 2019 and into the spring of 2020, all
21. The Defendant also encouraged the Plaintiff’s wife to keep secret
from her husband the true nature of her relationship with Mr. Yawn through their
22. While acting in a pastoral role toward the Plaintiff and his wife the
Defendant gained access to personal and private information which the Plaintiff
would otherwise have never shared with him but for this fiduciary relationship with
the Plaintiff.
marital relationship between Ben and Julianna Zobrist. The Defendant exploited
this private information and in 2019 even deceptively encouraged Mr. Zobrist to
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“give his wife some space”. All the while, the Defendant was using the confidential
information shared with him by the Plaintiff to his own self-seeking advantage and
24. Mr. Zobrist shared a painful detail about his marriage in the following
text message to the Defendant on February 20, 2019. Mr. Yawn, who at the time
was still sexually involved with the Plaintiff’s wife behind his back, responded with
gained to further cement his illicit relationship with the Plaintiff’s wife.
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26. The Defendant has since acknowledged under oath that during the
with the Plaintiff as his pastor and counselor and that he owed him certain duties
27. The Defendant breached his fiduciary duty toward the Plaintiff as well
as his duty of confidentiality and trust that existed by virtue of his pastoral
charity, Patriot Forward to his own personal benefit. In June of 2018 The Defendant
was involved in all aspects of the Plaintiff’s charity, writing himself into all aspects
curriculum for the young players. In the beginning, Defendant was charging the
organization various rates for his work: $50.00 per hour for Curriculum
29. On September 19, 2018 the Defendant emailed a proposed budget for
the organization that included a salary for himself of $36,000.00 per year.
30. In the fall of 2018, Defendant began using his role in Patriot Forward
as an excuse to meet with the Plaintiff’s wife, Julianna Zobrist, and began working
closely with Mrs. Zobrist over several months purportedly to develop the charity’s
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31. By December of 2018, the Defendant drafted his own job description
32. When the Defendant began meeting the Plaintiff’s wife for sex during
the spring of 2019, he was still the Executive Director of Patriot Forward.
33. The Plaintiff began ingratiating himself into all the financial aspects
of Patriot Forward. He provided the budgets, signed contracts for various events,
and was involved in all aspects of the website, social media, brand adjustment, their
34. The Defendant used his imprimatur as a minister to draft and propose
stated as a tag line for this charity: “Caring for the Heart and Soul of the Professional
Baseball Player”. He also drafted as part of the charity’s mission statement the
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35. On January 14, 2019, Mr. Yawn sent the Plaintiff an email entitled
goals for the charity, including the Defendant’s four-month plan to work on the
36. The Community Bible Church where the Defendant was Senior Pastor
and Elder until January of 2019, maintained certain religious tenets and practices.
Specifically, the Community Bible Church and the Defendant as Senior Pastor and
Elder espoused and taught the following doctrinal teachings as set forth in the
Church’s bylaws:
We believe that the term ‘marriage’ has only one meaning and
that it is marriage sanctioned by God which joins one man and
one woman in a single, exclusive union, as delineated in
Scripture.
Qualification of Elders
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37. During the relevant period of time discussed in this complaint Mr.
Zobrist attended this church and contributed generously to it. On average, Mr.
38. Mr. Zobrist also gave to families in need at the church, donating as
a special gift of between $10-15,000.00 to fund a pastoral trip for the Yawn family.
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39. Byron Yawn also led an annual event at the church in which he
introduced the Plaintiff as a headline speaker and took advantage of the Plaintiff’s
celebrity status as a means of attracting and recruiting new members to the church.
the Plaintiff, Mr. Yawn often capitalized on the Plaintiff’s celebrity asking him to
sign autographs for his mother-in-law; requesting tickets to baseball games; hosting
“Guys Night Out” for the church at Mr. Zobrist’s home; Mr. Yawn requested that
Mr. Zobrist send personal videos to parishioners who were being baptized; and
nominating Mr. Zobrist as a deacon of Community Bible Church in hopes that his
celebrity would attract new parishioners and keep current parishioners in the church.
41. Following the Plaintiff’s victory in the 2016 World Series, Mr. Yawn
Zobrist’s Pastor”.
43. In May of 2019, the Defendant’s wife, Robin Yawn discovered that
he had a burner phone. Mrs. Yawn told her husband that if Julianna Zobrist did not
tell the Plaintiff about this, that she would do so. Mrs. Yawn did confide to Mr.
Zobrist the following day that she believed her husband and his wife were having
44. In response to this revelation by Ms. Zobrist, the Plaintiff and his wife
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45. It is the Plaintiff’s understanding that Byron Yawn and his wife,
Robin Yawn also engaged in marital counseling sometime in 2019 following her
the summer of 2019. He was unable to do so, however, due to the newly discovered
information from Robin Yawn, and his need to turn his focus entirely on repairing
his marital relationship. As a consequence, Mr. Zobrist forfeited four months of his
which Mr. Yawn was paid a salary of $3,500 per month. Despite his termination in
March of that year, Mr. Yawn somehow continued to fraudulently receive salary
checks until May of 2019 and he cashed these checks with full knowledge that his
48. The Plaintiff did not discover until June 3, 2020, when his wife
admitted for the first time in response to a set of written requests for admission in a
divorce proceeding, that she and Byron Yawn had been engaged in a sexual
relationship for several months and that she had lied about this to Mr. Zobrist.
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2020).
(Response by Julianna Zobrist to Request for Admission No. 11, received on June
3, 2020).
IV.
Causes of Action
I.
COUNT I
Breach of Fiduciary Duty
and fidelity to the Plaintiff to conduct himself in a manner that was consistent with
the attributes, tenets and qualifications ascribed to one in the office of elder within
51. In addition, the Defendant owed a fiduciary duty to the Plaintiff with
placed his confidence and trust as one who claimed certain expertise and superior
knowledge.
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52. The Defendant willfully and deliberately breached his fiduciary duty
both the Plaintiff and his wife in healing and strengthening their
wellbeing.
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to the other for harm resulting from a breach of duty imposed by the relation.
his fiduciary relationship with the Plaintiff, the Plaintiff has suffered, and continues
55. The Defendant acted with intentional and reckless disregard for the
emotional health and wellbeing of the Plaintiff and with full knowledge that his
actions would most certainly inflict serious emotional injury. The Plaintiff is
COUNT II
Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress
57. The Defendant’s conduct in carrying out his scheme to use his
position of trust as pastor and counselor to gain confidential information from the
Plaintiff and then use it in order to fulfil his own selfish, prurient interests was
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undertaken intentionally and with full knowledge of the injury such actions would
58. The Defendant’s actions were carried out over a period of several
months and under the guise of a counselor-counselee relationship with the Plaintiff
infliction of emotional distress, the Plaintiff has suffered, and continues to suffer
60. The Defendant acted with intentional and reckless disregard for the
emotional health and wellbeing of the Plaintiff and with full knowledge that his
actions would most certainly inflict serious emotional injury. The Plaintiff is
1. That he be allowed to file this Complaint and that process issue to the
Defendant BYRON YAWN, requiring him to respond within the time required by
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4. That a jury of six be empaneled to hear and try all issues of fact
5. That the Plaintiff have and recover such further and general relief as
Respectfully submitted,
By:
___________________________
Larry L. Crain (#9040)
Emily A. Castro (28203)
5214 Maryland Way, Suite 402
Brentwood, TN. 37027
Tel. 615-376-2600
Fax. 615-345-6009
Email: [email protected]
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