Where Is Perry Mason Now That We Need Him?

When I was a kid, one of the must-see TV shows was Perry Mason; I loved it when Perry got to cross examine Lieutenant Tragg.  I also got to the point where I thought every murder case could be handled in about 50 minutes with a couple of minutes left over so that the victors – – Mason and his team of course – – could celebrate.  Such is not the case in reality as we shall see today in three lawsuits involving the NFL.

For the last several months the NFL has been sued over some arrangements it had with a TV provider for “Sunday Ticket”.  I never subscribed to that service nor had any interest in it so I never began to understand what the lawsuit was about; I might read the lead paragraph of a story about it and then move on; that is why I have not mentioned it in these rants until now.

Ignoring the underlying issues in the case, the NFL lost Round One when a jury ruled for the plaintiff and assessed damages to be paid to the plaintiffs of $4.7B – – clearly not an award of “chump change”.  Reports said that at least some of the plaintiff’s allegations involved anti-trust violations; I know that in some situations anti-trust cases can involve treble damages; I do now know if any or all that $4.7B judgement might be subject to tripling because the detailed reporting is well beyond my level of understanding.

The bottom line is that the NFL lost big-time at the trial level and vowed to appeal the situation but before they even did that, the NFL petitioned the judge to set aside the assessment of damages.  And earlier this week, the judge did just that.  As I understand it, he did so because the jury did not follow his instructions in calculating the damage assessment.  So, the status of this case raises several questions to this legal illiterate:

• If the judge has a method of calculating the damage award that he communicates to the jury, why have the jury do it in the first place?  Why doesn’t the judge thank the jury for its verdict and announce the damage assessment by himself if he knows what the calculation should be?
• When he sets aside the damages in the case, does that set aside the verdict too? 
• Can the plaintiffs here appeal the part of the ruling that set aside the damages and leave the verdict intact so the judge can do the calculation himself?

Perry Mason would have this one solved by recalling one witness – – if it please the court…

I had no dog in the fight over “Sunday Ticket”, but I do have at least a “rooting interest” in the other two cases involving the NFL that I want to discuss today.  The first one involves Brian Flores and a couple of other plaintiffs who are suing the NFL and a couple of specific teams alleging racial discrimination in hiring.  The status of the lawsuit is that a Federal judge has ruled that this case must go to trial and the NFL has appealed that ruling saying the dispute should be handled by arbitration which is controlled by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.  In this case, I am rooting hard for Flores et. al. to have their case proceed in Federal Court with evidence presented for everyone to see.

Obviously, a claim of racial discrimination in hiring by the NFL and/or some of its teams should not be heard in a secret tribunal controlled by the NFL if the outcome of that trial is to be considered fair and equitable to all the parties.  But over and above that issue, the evidence presented by the parties in the arbitration process is not available for public view and that presents two “problems” for me:

1. No matter the ruling, there is no way anyone outside the people who heard the evidence presented in the case can possibly assess the fairness or the righteousness of the decision.  Any such conclusion by anyone from a legal ignoramus like me to the Dean of the Law School at a prestigious university is nothing but speculation.
2. If the outcome of the arbitration process is in favor of the NFL and its teams, there is no way to dispose of the reality that the NFL is the defendant AND the judge with no jury involved in the arbitration process.  Caesar’s wife had to be above suspicion; this arbitration process should adhere to that standard and the way it is set up it cannot.

Moreover, racial discrimination accusations are serious business – – far more serious than any sort of suspension or fine might be.  If indeed Flores and his co-plaintiffs can make a case to prove racial discrimination, they should be given a level playing field to try to do so.  If they have such a level playing field – – trial in a Federal Court – – and they lose the case, so be it.  Of course, if Flores et. al. have hired a real-life Perry Mason, they won’t lose their case…

The third case involving the NFL for today is the Jon Gruden suit against the NFL who alleges “tortious interference” with his contract to be the head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders.  Gruden alleges that Roger Goodell or someone aligned with Goodell leaked copies of racist, misogynistic and homophobic emails to the Wall Street Journal and the NY Times that Gruden had written long before he was the coach of the Raiders and was a football analyst for ESPN.   Gruden’s suit alleges that such “tortious interference” cost him about $60M in lost wages from the Raiders plus endorsement deals that he may have had as a result of his position with the team.

Once again, the league wants the case to go to arbitration which it controls.  Gruden won the right to an open trial at the Nevada District Court level but lost on appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court where the judges said that he had accepted the settlement of disputes via arbitration as part of his contract with the Raiders.  That ruling was a 2-1 decision in favor of the NFL; Gruden has now appealed to the Nevada Supreme Court for an en banc hearing of his appeal meaning the whole Nevada Supreme Court would hear the case.  Reports say this is quite a longshot on the part of Gruden’s lawyers, but any port in a storm, I guess.

I have neither animus nor admiration for Jon Gruden, but I have a voyeuristic interest in this matter.  There were reports that the “leaked emails” were culled from a mass of about 600,000 emails that were exchanged with Gruden and various NFL folks at various levels in the league.  Totally unrelated to the outcome of Jon Gruden’s case, I would love to see – and download – that body of emails to get a peek behind the curtain that hides from view some of the NFL’s inner workings.  Gruden needs Perry Mason here to be allowed to “recall a witness” for the en banc Court to hear…

Finally, the obvious person to quote at the end of today’s rant is Erle Stanley Gardner – – the creator of Perry Mason:

“After you’ve written a story, the thing to do is sell it. Sounds simple, and it is, if one will follow certain basic principles of salesmanship.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………