Long story short ... Albert was being sued by his cousin Wilfrido Juan Pujols -- a former baseball prodigy who was a passenger in a 2007 police chase in which a man was struck by the car and killed.

Wilfrido's brother was driving and cops say the guy was messed up on booze and drugs at the time. Wilfrido, however, was cleared of any wrongdoing.

Still, Wilfrido says Albert and his wife were involved in crafting an email that went public -- which wrongly painted Wilfrido as a murderer. He wanted $27 mil for defamation.

But after spending more than a year in court, the judge ruled that Albert did nothing wrong -- and kicked Wilfrido's massive lawsuit out of court.