Semi-OT: NFL beefs up Deflategate legal team

[YOUGOTMOSSED]

That, too.

But, Pash and Wells are both damaged goods after the proceedings in the SDNY, so I imagine that there was a lot of pressure from some Owners on Goodell to upgrade the legal team for the Appeal to the Second Circuit. These two are heavy hitters, so Goodell will have some air cover when he loses. Of course, he'll have to explain another seven figure legal bill...but, I guess it's "easy come, easy go" at 345 Park.

I wouldn't be surprised if the NFLPA in response doesn't add another heavy hitter in addition to Kessler.

No matter how good an appellate lawyer is, he's stuck with the record of the underlying proceeding. A responsible lawyer would just tell Goodell, "there's nothing to appeal and you're wasting everybody's time"; other lawyers would just negotiate the hourly rate.

 

[Huckleberry1]

BREAKING NEWS: The NFL has made a multi billion dollar offer to buy the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. According to Roger Goodwill this is just "the prudent thing to do" and purely a "business deal" and nothing more. Goodwill also made clear that the league's purchase of the court will in no way affect the impartiality of the impending Brady decision and announced the appointment of Ted Wells as Supreme Jurist on the Court as well as a six judge expansion of the court and a Fantasy element to start converting the court to a "moneymaker." Future plans to have appellate courts in Mexico City and Berlin are currently under discussion.

 

[patfanken]

For now, this just falls in the category of "Hmm...that's interesting."

Clement was appointed by Bush 43 as Solicitor General in 2004 at the age of 38 and regularly appears on Conservatives wishlists of SCOTUS nominees. Murphy is his protege and successfully argued the landmark McCutcheon Campaign Finance case before the Court, with Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas and Scalito in the majority and Breyer, Ginsburg, Kagan and Sotomayor in the minority.

I don't know what this means, but, before I dismiss it as just more bluster from the NFL throwing good money after bad, I am curious as to whether any of you who have been following this more closely than myself know which Judges from the Second Circuit have been designated to hear the case, if they have yet been designated? Clement and Murphy would carry a lot of weight with any Bush 41 or 43 appointees.

IIRC, I thought I read something in the myriad of pages we've read over the summer, is that the 3 judges are chosen very shortly before the case is due to be brought to the court. So I guess sometime in February,

 

[PatsFanSince74]

No matter how good an appellate lawyer is, he's stuck with the record of the underlying proceeding. A responsible lawyer would just tell Goodell, "there's nothing to appeal and you're wasting everybody's time"; other lawyers would just negotiate the hourly rate.

"responsible" and "lawyer" in the same sentence? Isn't that an oxymoron?

But, it is ethical for a lawyer to tell a potential client that "we will have a tough time prevailing, but if you're willing to pay the money, I'll give it my best shot." I suspect some version of that is what happened here. The fee will probably be in direct proportion to Goodell's level of desperation, i.e., very high indeed.

 

[patfanken]

Some ideas about motives for continuing:

• General inertia.
• The longer the case goes on, the more chance Brady is so fed up that he never bothers filing for defamation.
• If something happens to make Goodell lose his job, he'd like that to be as far in the future as possible.
• If things drag on until after Brady's retirement, maybe the NFL can drop the matter without ever admitting they had a final loss in court.
• As suggested above, the NFL will accept lesser disciplinary tyranny in the next CBA -- but they'd like to be trading that away for counter-concession, rather than have the courts just take it away from them.

As I am one who dearly hopes that there is a defamation suit so that there world will have a chance to see just how malicious and self interested this prosecution has been, I am THRILLED with this news. I hope Tom will see this as another example of just how far Goodell and his cronies are willing to go to bring him down. They will throw millions away just on a minuscule chance to drag him name into the mud over nothing. And once he sees just how far they will go, he will say "Fu*k it" and go on with a defamation suit. Seeing it as something he now HAS to do in order to protect himself from these predators.

That's the way I hope it goes. It could be that smarter heads in the league hired these guys to go over the case in order to prove the Roger the ludicrousness of their case, and the very slim chances of any success. Maybe hearing it from "experts" of this maganatude will bring Goodell to his senses and end this. But like I said, I'm hoping Tom looks at it like a threat he has to respond to after the season is over.

As to your list, Fence, I think the last on makes the most sense. The chip of dropping an expensive legal case that the NFLPA, will have to defend with their smaller legal resources, could be useful in a complex negotiation. This kind of legal extortion is a common tool in a lawyers black bag. Give into our demands or it will cost you millions to litigate it to the point it isn't worth it, even though you are in the right

Question: Just how are the judges selected. Is it a lottery? Is it simply the next 3 guys in line? Or what?

 

[RobertWeathers]

But if this whole thing was cooked up to be a "power play" against the players union, it's mind boggling how ill-conceived it was. I can see taking it to the limit on something like (1) suspending Ray Rice for spousal abuse; (2) suspending Peterson for child abuse; (3) suspending Rapeburger for being a serial rapist; (4) suspending Ray Lewis for obstructing a murder investigation (and more). Instead, they decide to push the envelope on a case where your league marquee player is accused of some ****amamie scheme to deflate balls when natural causes could not be ruled out?!?!?!?!

It raises the "how stupid can they possibly be" question?

The NFL is a discombobulated disaster. They aren't coordinated at all.

 

[memento]

The NFLPA might look to Ted Olson again, Clement's predecessor as U.S. solicitor general.

I expect Clement to go on the offensive in some way. In 2011 he argued against the validity of the NFLPA's decertification, which would have undermined the threat of anti-trust violations against the NFL. The courts ultimately never ruled on the antitrust aspect, but did buy Clements' argument enough to rule for it under the Norris-LaGuardia Act, which bars the courts from any kind of injunction against non-violent labor disputes, and basically got them an appellate court victory to continue the lockout.
Permanent stay ruling could really hurt NFLPA - CBSSports.com

I don't think there's any similar issues with Berman's ruling, but I'm not a lawyer.

 

[SVN]

Michael McCann?@McCannSportsLaw
Michael McCann Retweeted Daniel Wallach

NFL adds Paul Clement to legal team for appeal in Tom Brady case. Clement beat Brady/NFLPA in the 2011 lockout case.
FREEDTB12 ?@FREETB12 3h3 hours ago
@McCannSportsLaw @WALLACHLEGAL has he ever beaten a Berman decision/opinion?
Michael McCann ?@McCannSportsLaw 3h3 hours ago
@FREETB12 @WALLACHLEGAL I'll have to look that one up. Not sure if Clement has argued before Judge Berman. Either way, he is super talented.
FREEDTB12 ?@FREETB12 3h3 hours ago
@McCannSportsLaw @WALLACHLEGAL does talent often defy the laws of fundamental fairness? Just curious.
Michael McCann ?@McCannSportsLaw 2h2 hours ago
@FREETB12 @WALLACHLEGAL Good rhetorical Q. Clement and Murphy will have their work cut out for them. Judge Berman's decision was logical.
FREEDTB12 ?@FREETB12 2h2 hours ago
@McCannSportsLaw @WALLACHLEGAL I just wish someone would remind the NFL, no notice, no access to witness = no dice for their case.
Michael McCann ?@McCannSportsLaw 2h2 hours ago
@FREETB12 @WALLACHLEGAL You can bank on the NFLPA raising those arguments in the appeal. They worked well with Judge Berman.
Peter Broomhall ?@truckeeMTrunner 3h3 hours ago
@McCannSportsLaw Does this give the nfl a better shot to win the appeal?
Michael McCann ?@McCannSportsLaw 3h3 hours ago
@truckeeMTrunner It can only help the NFL to add two of the best attorneys around in Clement and Murphy. But Judge Berman's rarely reversed.

 

[VectorPrime]

Who cares how talented these two guys are? These aren't the days of Cicero where the most impressive orator would win over the crowd and decide the case. The NFL has no grounds for overturning the ruling and they aren't going to magically come up with one. The "Goodell can rule whatever he wants with impunity" argument doesn't sound more impressive coming out of a more expensive mouth.

 

[Palm Beach Pats Fan]

The more times the NFL loses this horrid case, the more they lock themselves into a position of weakness.

Drop the case RIGHT NOW and they can logically argue that they simply made serious procedural errors in the deflategate "investigation" and they would be OK in future challenges so long as they didn't make the same mistakes again, like not making an investigator available to be called as a witness, and not specifying the possible penalties for non-cooperation.

But no.... they are so ridiculously arrogant that any admission of error on their part offends their dictatorial egos.

 

[IcyPatriot]

IMO this is all about the next CBA ....

Brady was their power play ... they failed and now they must pay up.

If the NFL loses which they are losing as we know ... the players have a chip to play next time.

 

[Fencer]

A bit of context here -- NFL ownership and management is a group of men of which Robert Kraft is a remarkably intelligent member.

We're not talking about decisions made by a bunch of geniuses.

 

[Joker]

A bit of context here -- NFL ownership and management is a group of men of which Robert Kraft is a remarkably intelligent member.

We're not talking about decisions made by a bunch of geniuses.

Hmmm...Irsay?...Jones?...I think you're onto something here, Fencer.

 

[aluminum seats]

It's borderline psychotic, it really is.

 

[QuantumMechanic]

Question: Just how are the judges selected. Is it a lottery? Is it simply the next 3 guys in line? Or what?

Lottery.

 

[Ken Canin]

Am I that far out there to think that if the NFL were a district attorney's office, the case would have been thrown out for prosecutorial misconduct?

Yes.

 

[BradyFTW!]

It's so weird that this is so personal to them.

It's management vs. labor, plain and simple. As petty and stupid as Goodell is, I don't think this case would be ongoing if not for the issue of precedent. The NFL really hates the notion of being constrained to some semblance of due process according to its own home district court.

The way I see this is that the NFL knows they're facing an uphill battle. They're pulling out all the stops because they have to. They desperately want some court--any court--to validate Goodell's authority to do whatever the hell he wants whenever he wants for whatever reason he wants or no reason at all. It hasn't happened any of the other times they've tried it, and it won't happen here. They're wasting money.

 

[BradyFTW!]

This isn't about Brady as much as it is the NFL's ability to run sham arbitration hearings and have them stick. The NFL lost too many cases to outside arbiters and now wants Goodell to be able to dole out punishment and appeal hearings, as they argue is in the Collectively Bargained Agreement. The CBA, however interpreted, does not sign away federal labor laws. Goodell is required to act impartially, establish rules and punishment before he punishes for them, and allow defendents similar rights they would receive in court.

Goodell will try to take this to the Supreme Court.

And the supreme court will point at him, laugh, and tell him to GTFO, as is its right.

 

[RayClay]

shoot, paul clement is a former solicitor general. he's one of the best.

He obviously has no moral code.

 

[BradyFTW!]

I don't see why the NFL just doesn't settle this -- a fine for failure to cooperate and move on to fight the next battle.

But then, I've never understood the NFL's action. Am I that far out there to think that if the NFL were a district attorney's office, the case would have been thrown out for prosecutorial misconduct? Leaking and failure to correct false and prejudicial information, and lying in a document?

My take is they are going for the big win -- a ruling in their favor that says the NFL is investigator, judge, jury and executioner and the players only have very limited ability to defend themselves. Basically, a dictatorship.

The funny thing is, the only precedent that this sets is that people being punished need prior notification of what they can be punished for, as well as some vague semblance of due process (access to investigation notes, ability to question conductor of investigation... and that's about it, really).

And the NFL just can't have that. Being forced to abide by the rules of their own CBA is an injustice that just can't stand. The CBA is supposed to **** over everyone else! It's not supposed to constrain the NFL!