COPY EFILED 05/06/21 04:17 PM CASE NO. 21C781 Richard R.

Rooker, Clerk

IN THE CIRCUIT COURT FOR THE TWENTIETH JUDICIAL

DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE
AT NASHVILLE

BENJAMIN T. ZOBRIST, )
)
Plaintiff, )
)
-vs- ) Case No. ________________
)
BYRON YAWN, ) JURY DEMAND
)
Defendant. )

COMPLAINT

COMES NOW THE PLAINTIFF BENJAMIN T. ZOBRIST and sues the

Defendant BYRON YAWN, and hereby states as follows.

I
INTRODUCTION

1. The Plaintiff Benjamin T. Zobrist brings this action against the

Defendant Byron Yawn for breach of fiduciary duty while acting in a confidential

role as a pastoral counselor and as the Executive Director of a charity established

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

this ministerial-counselor role, violated and betrayed the confidence entrusted to

him by the Plaintiff, breached his fiduciary duty owed to the Plaintiff and deceitfully

used his access as counselor to engage in an inappropriate sexual relationship with

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

intentional infliction of emotional distress.

II.
JURISDICTION AND VENUE

2. Jurisdiction is vested in this Court pursuant to Tenn. Code Ann. § 16-

10-101.

3. Tenn. Code Ann. § 20-4-101(a) provides, “In all civil actions of a

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

4. Benjamin T. Zobrist is an adult citizen and resident of Williamson

County, Tennessee.

5. Byron Yawn is an adult citizen and resident of Davidson County,

Tennessee. He may be served with process at the following address: 5448 Overton

Road, Nashville, Tennessee 37220.

IV.
FACTS

6. Benjamin (“Ben”) Zobrist is an accomplished athlete and former

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

and 2016 with the Cubs.

7. Mr. Zobrist is married to Julianna Zobrist, and is the father of three

minor children, the youngest of which is five years of age.

8. Byron Yawn is the owner of a consulting business known as Forrest

Crain & Company. During the relevant time period discussed in this Complaint, the

Defendant was the Senior Pastor and Elder at Community Bible Church in

Nashville, Tennessee, where he was employed for approximately twenty years as

both pastor and elder. In addition, the Defendant, throughout the relevant period

discussed in this Complaint, was the Executive Director of Patriot Forward Charity

founded by the Plaintiff.

9. Beginning in 2005, Plaintiff and his wife regularly attended

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

encouraged to accord a level of trust as their spiritual mentor. As an example of this

trust, the Plaintiff and his wife submitted to pre-marital counseling with the

Defendant. In addition, they later accepted the Defendant’s invitation to officiate

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

biblical teachings in the Christian faith.

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.

12. In 2005, Defendant Yawn provided pre-marital counseling to both

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

with anxiety and depression.

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

sharing his faith.

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

Defendant’s church dealing with pornography.

17. Commencing in August of 2018, Mr. Yawn began having regular

conversations with the Plaintiff’s wife, Julianna Zobrist on a daily basis.

18. Unbeknownst to the Plaintiff, in September of 2018, during the time

that he was providing pastoral counseling to Mr. Zobrist, the Defendant also began

secretly pursuing an intimate relationship with Mr. Zobrist’s wife.

19. The Defendant’s romantic involvement with Ms. Zobrist escalated in

the spring of 2019, when he began meeting her for sex.

20. The Defendant secretly maintained a sexually intimate relationship

with the Plaintiff’s wife for the remainder of 2019 and into the spring of 2020, all

the while concealing it from the Plaintiff, his counselee.

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

mutual use of “burner phones”.

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.

23. As an example, the Defendant became aware of small fissures in the

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

in derogation of the Plaintiff’s personal, emotional or spiritual wellbeing.

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

feigned words of sympathy and friendship:

25. While falsely claiming to serve as a fiduciary and repository of the

Plaintiff’s trust and confidence, the Defendant surreptitiously used information he

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

relevant time period discussed in this complaint he occupied a special relationship

with the Plaintiff as his pastor and counselor and that he owed him certain duties

while acting in these roles.

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

relationship with the Plaintiff.

28. As an additional means of ingratiating himself to the Plaintiff, the

Defendant used his influence to assume a leadership position with Plaintiff’s

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

of the organization from content development to copyrighting, to writing the

curriculum for the young players. In the beginning, Defendant was charging the

organization various rates for his work: $50.00 per hour for Curriculum

Development; $37.50 per hour for Consultation/Project Management; for an

estimated combined hourly rate of $87.50.

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

social media presence.

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31. By December of 2018, the Defendant drafted his own job description

as Executive Director, involving himself in every facet of the Plaintiff’s charity.

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

long term marketing strategy, and their financial systems.

34. The Defendant used his imprimatur as a minister to draft and propose

a mission statement for Patriot Forward. In an October of 2018, the Defendant

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

following four purposes:

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35. On January 14, 2019, Mr. Yawn sent the Plaintiff an email entitled

“2019 Strategic Planning Session Results” in which he outlined several months of

goals for the charity, including the Defendant’s four-month plan to work on the

charity’s mission/values/goals content.

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:

Marriage and Sexuality

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.

We believe that God intends sexual intimacy to only occur

between a man and a woman who are married to each other. We
believe that God has commanded that no intimate sexual activity
be engaged outside of marriage between a man and a woman.

We believe that any form of sexual immorality, such as adultery,

fornication, homosexuality, bisexual conduct, bestiality, incest,
pornography, or any attempt to change one’s sex, or disagreement
with one’s biological sex, is sinful and offensive to God.

Qualification of Elders

Each member of the Board of Elders must be an active member

of this church and possess the qualifications described in 1
Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:6-9. He shall be:

1. Blameless as a steward of God; above reproach (1 Timothy 3:2;

Titus 1:6-7).

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2. Husband of one wife; a one-woman man (1 Timothy 3:2; Titus

1:6).
3. Temperate, sober, vigilant (1 Timothy 3:2).
4. Sober-minded, prudent (1 Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:8).
5. Of good behavior; orderly, respectable (1 Timothy 3:2).
6. Given to hospitality (1 Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:8).
7. Apt to teach; able to teach; he can exhort believers and refute
false teaching (1 Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:9).
8. Not given to wine (1 Timothy 3:3; Titus 1:7).
9. Not violent; not pugnacious (1 Tim. 3:3, Titus 1:7).
10. Patient, moderate, forbearing, gentle (1 Timothy 3:3).
11.Not a brawler; uncontentious; not soon angry or quick-
tempered (1 Timothy 3:3; Titus 1:7).
12. Not covetous; not a lover of money; not greedy of base gain
(1 Timothy 3:3, Titus 1:7).
13.Rules well his own house. His children are faithful; not
accused of rebellion to God (1 Timothy 3:4; Titus 1:7).
14. Not a novice; not a new convert (1 Timothy 3:6).
15. Has a good report or reputation with outsiders (1Timothy 3:7).
16. Not self-willed (Titus 1:7).
17. A lover of good men and things (Titus 1:8).
18. Just, fair (Titus 1:8).
19. Holy, devout (Titus 1:8).
20. Self-controlled (Titus 1:8).

(Bylaws of Community Bible Church).

37. During the relevant period of time discussed in this complaint Mr.

Zobrist attended this church and contributed generously to it. On average, Mr.

Zobrist donated approximately $10,000.00 per month in tithes and offerings, an

amount which funded two to three salaried church positions.

38. Mr. Zobrist also gave to families in need at the church, donating as

much as $15,000.00 to families when requested to do so by Mr. Yawn. He also made

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.

40. Throughout the Defendant’s pastoral counseling and mentorship with

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

submitted for national publication in the Baptist Press a series of interviews

identifying himself as the Pastor of Ben Zobrist.

42. The Defendant often publicly touted himself to others as “Ben

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

an emotional relationship, but nothing physical.

44. In response to this revelation by Ms. Zobrist, the Plaintiff and his wife

began marital counseling with the goal of re-strengthening their marriage.

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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

discovery of Mr. Yawn’s burner phone.

46. The Plaintiff was scheduled to return playing professional baseball in

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

2019 season of his professional baseball contract resulting in approximately eight

million dollars of lost income.

47. In March of 2019, Patriot Forward, the charitable organization

founded by the Plaintiff, terminated Mr. Yawn as Executive Director, a position in

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

position had been terminated.

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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(Response by Julianna Zobrist to Request for Admission No. 8, received on June 3,

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

49. Plaintiff incorporates by reference herein the allegations contained in

the preceding numbered paragraphs, and does further allege as follows.

50. The Defendant owed a fiduciary duty of loyalty, confidentiality, trust

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

the Community Bible Church.

51. In addition, the Defendant owed a fiduciary duty to the Plaintiff with

whom he maintained a counselor-counselee relationship, and in whom the Plaintiff

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

to the Plaintiff by:

a. falsely representing that he was providing counseling to assist

both the Plaintiff and his wife in healing and strengthening their

marriage while deceptively acting in furtherance of his own

selfish, prurient interests;

b. acting under the pretense of a pastor while taking advantage of the

Plaintiff’s vulnerable state to further his own selfish interests;

c. betraying the confidence of the Plaintiff by disclosing matters that

were confided to the Defendant by the Plaintiff in the course of

their counseling relationship in order to selfishly gain the trust and

confidence of the Plaintiff’s wife;

d. falsely representing that he possessed the qualifications of an

Elder and adhered to the tenets and doctrinal positions of the

Church in order to gain the confidence and trust of the Plaintiff;

e. entering into a clergy-parishioner relationship with the Plaintiff

under the guise and “sheep’s clothing” of spiritual care, counseling

and mentorship while selfishly seeking his own personal interests

to the detriment of the Plaintiff’s emotional and spiritual

wellbeing.

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f. betraying his duty as the Executive Director of the charity, Patriot

Forward, to his own personal benefit and gain to the detriment of

the Plaintiff and to this charitable organization;

53. One standing in a fiduciary relation with another is subject to liability

to the other for harm resulting from a breach of duty imposed by the relation.

Restatement (Second) of Torts § 874.

54. As a direct and proximate result of the Defendant’s willful breach of

his fiduciary relationship with the Plaintiff, the Plaintiff has suffered, and continues

to suffer emotional injury, mental anguish, humiliation, embarrassment and loss of

enjoyment of life for which he is entitled to judgment for compensatory damages.

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

entitled to a judgment against the Defendant for punitive damages.

COUNT II
Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress

56. Plaintiff incorporates by reference herein the allegations contained in

the preceding numbered paragraphs, and does further allege as follows.

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

inflict upon the Plaintiff.

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

and the Plaintiff’s wife and constitutes outrageous conduct.

59. As a direct and proximate result of the Defendant’s intentional

infliction of emotional distress, the Plaintiff has suffered, and continues to suffer

emotional injury, mental anguish, humiliation, embarrassment and loss of

enjoyment of life for which he is entitled to judgment for compensatory damages.

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

entitled to a judgment against the Defendant for punitive damages.

WHEREFORE, PLAINTIFF REQUESTS THE FOLLOWING RELIEF:

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

the Tennessee Rules of Civil Procedure;

2. That at the trial of this case, the Plaintiff be awarded compensatory

damages against BYRON YAWN in the amount of Three Million Dollars;

3. That at the trial of this case, the Plaintiff be awarded punitive

damages against BYRON YAWN in the amount of Three Million Dollars;

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4. That a jury of six be empaneled to hear and try all issues of fact

presented in this action;

5. That the Plaintiff have and recover such further and general relief as

to which he may be entitled, including the costs of this cause.

Respectfully submitted,

CRAIN LAW GROUP, PLLC

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: Larry@crainlaw.legal

Counsel for the Plaintiff

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