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letekro said:

Like many many other things, we disagree about that.

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The lack of a cell phone could come into play in a future civil trial, such as defamation, but it is irrelevant to the union/management labor dispute that is soon to commence.

The key point is whether Brady destroyed something that Wells was entitled to get. There is no CBA specification that personal cell phones be shared, thus Wells had no business asking for it. The only other way, besides CBA provisions, that it could be considered spoilage is if Brady was warned in advance, specifically, that he would face a certain punishment if the cell phone was not provided. That did not happen, according to the Minnesota filing. Wells was simply asking for Brady's personal property. It would be no different than Wells asking to take his car, his home, or his boat. Brady can do with Brady's property as he pleases, including sharing it, not sharing it, or running over it with a bulldozer.

letekro said:

Like many many other things, we disagree about that.

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You can disagree all you want. There is no spoliation issue. Brady was told by Wells that they didn't need his phone.

On the ESPN discussion, I just can't go to Reiss's ESPN Boston site anymore. It is just too clogged with irrelevant Patriots-hating crap, and there are no settings to only see the Reiss articles. Sad. Mike does a great job.

JMC00 said:

Love how all these mediots keep saying "Brady will still serve the 4 games" like they are sure. They have zero clue on how a judge will look at this.

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up until Tuesday they were the same people saying the suspension would be reduced to one or two games.

Palm Beach Pats Fan said:

On the ESPN discussion, I just can't go to Reiss's ESPN Boston site anymore. It is just too clogged with irrelevant Patriots-hating crap, and there are no settings to only see the Reiss articles. Sad. Mike does a great job.

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That's why I follow Mike on twitter. He always tweets links to his articles and then I can click on them and go to directly to his articles and only his articles.

Palm Beach Pats Fan said:

The lack of a cell phone could come into play in a future civil trial, such as defamation, but it is irrelevant to the union/management labor dispute that is soon to commence.

The key point is whether Brady destroyed something that Wells was entitled to get. There is no CBA specification that personal cell phones be shared, thus Wells had no business asking for it. The only other way, besides CBA provisions, that it could be considered spoilage is if Brady was warned in advance, specifically, that he would face a certain punishment if the cell phone was not provided. That did not happen, according to the Minnesota filing. Wells was simply asking for Brady's personal property. It would be no different than Wells asking to take his car, his home, or his boat. Brady can do with Brady's property as he pleases, including sharing it, not sharing it, or running over it with a bulldozer.

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As i said in my post, spoliation would be an issue in a defamation case. The labor case is a due process case, it has little to do with what Brady did with his phone.

Brady would likely lose his case on the doctrine of “spoliation of evidence,” yes?

I am aware of this article claiming that getting rid of the cell phone was spoliation of evidence. I disagree with it.

First of all, Wells said he didn’t want the phone and was okay with representations that there was no relevant information on the phone. Doesn’t sound like a big deal. Doesn’t seem at that time that after all that cooperation, the content of a private phone that Wells was not legally entitled to have would have been the key to most of the case against him.

The focus of the future litigation is likely going to be on process not so much the fact details. Part of process is reasonable notice of the issues and a neutral arbitration.

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Was Brady made aware that the phone contents were going to be made a big part of a significant punishment? Would he have been required to maintain his computer data? Process issues.

The NFL has a history of trying to move the goal line on why the players are being punished.

This isn’t a civil or criminal claim. It is an investigation with very few boundaries other than labor law ones.

The evidence isn’t *spoiled* anyway because they have the texts already and were offered an easy way to get texts from team sources if the NFL chose to.

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http://www.stradleylaw.com/deflategate-legal-questions/

Deus Irae said:

http://www.stradleylaw.com/deflategate-legal-questions/

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If that is in response to me, one more time, slowly: spoliation would be an issue in a defamation case. She is talking about the process issues inherent in the NFLPA suit, not the evidence that would go to defamation and defenses thereto. Those directly implicate the spoliation issue.

letekro said:

If that is in response to me, one more time, slowly: spoliation would be an issue in a defamation case. She is talking about the process issues inherent in the NFLPA suit, not the evidence that would go to defamation and defenses thereto. Those directly implicate the spoliation issue.

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It's not evidence because Wells made it irrelevant. Therefore, no spoliation.

SVN said:

Goodell's argument at least in his ruling is that Brady's act is resulting in changing the competitive balance of the game like using PED's so the same suspension is valid. Unless the CBA explicitly mentions PED's , they may make this a broader thing by including equipment tampering.

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Wouldn't they have to demonstrate how - even assuming Brady directed the balls to be illegally deflated - such an act changed the competitive balance of the game?

First half, with deflated footballs, Brady was so-so and the Pats scored 17 points.
Second half, with normally inflated footballs, Brady was incredible and the Pats scored 28 points.

Then, to top it off, in the Super Bowl, with normally inflated footballs, Brady set Super Bowl records, won the MVP, and the Pats put up 28 points on one of the all-time great defenses in league history.

It's very difficult to demonstrate that Brady changed the competitive balance of the game, even assuming he directed the alleged tampering.

letekro said:

If that is in response to me, one more time, slowly: spoliation would be an issue in a defamation case. She is talking about the process issues inherent in the NFLPA suit, not the evidence that would go to defamation and defenses thereto. Those directly implicate the spoliation issue.

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It was a general note, but your inability to grasp that spoliation isn't here, for one reason, BECAUSE THE 'PROSECUTION' CONCEDED THE ISSUE

Wells never asked for Tom Brady’s cellphone, and didn’t require it. “Keep the phone,” Wells told Brady and his agent. He insisted that his investigation was thorough without it. “I don’t think it undermines in any way the conclusions of the report,” he said. Those were his exact words. So were these, after interrogating Brady for more than five hours: “Totally cooperative,” Wells said of Brady’s testimony.

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Back on Feb. 28, the Wells team sent an e-mail to Brady and his agent Don Yee requesting his cellphone records. Not the phone itself, just the records.

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It’s only when you go back and examine the Wells report, and study Goodell’s written decision more closely, that you discover the phone was never demanded as evidence. You also discover Footnote Number 11.

Goodell’s own buried footnote says that during the appeal before him, Brady and his agents furnished comprehensive cellphone records, including records of 10,000 text messages, and offered to help find and reconstruct all relevant communications.

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continues to be noted. Happy now?

Brady’s phone records showed that he communicated with just 28 league-affiliated people. It was clear from the phone numbers which of them were Patriots employees in a position to manipulate game balls. It should have been a simple matter to discern if Brady destroyed relevant communications with them.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/sport...da3b02-3666-11e5-9d0f-7865a67390ee_story.html

Deus Irae said:

It was a general note, but your inability to grasp that spoliation isn't here, for one reason, BECAUSE THE 'PROSECUTION' CONCEDED THE ISSUE







continues to be noted. Happy now?

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This was mentioned in the NFLPA petition as an "Undisputed Fact".

Of course, mediots haven't read the thing, so..