A win for Vick, a loss for the NFL

Michael Vick has had a rough go of it in courts over the last couple of years, but he won a sizable victory against the NFL in the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals today. The decision allows him to keep some $16 million in signing bonuses paid to him by the Falcons.

But perhaps more significant than Vick’s win, since he was already in bankruptcy despite having received that money, is the NFL’s loss in its attempt to get the supervision of suits arising out of its Collective Bargaining Agreement removed from the jurisdiction of a Minnesota federal judge, whom the NFL claimed was improperly biased against the league and its owners.

APThe decision today allows Michael Vick to keep about $16 million in signing bonuses from the Falcons.

The NFL had been on a winning streak in federal appeals courts, having won important victories in the Delaware sports betting case, the American Needle case and, going back a bit, the Maurice Clarett case. The Delaware and Clarett cases had been reversals of lower court decisions that had originally gone against the NFL.

But in this case, the NFL was using the appeal of a decision, which held that Vick had earned roster bonuses in 2005 and 2006 paid by the Falcons as a basis to overturn a long-standing consent decree dating to the settlement of the Reggie White class action lawsuit in 1993. In settling the White case, where the NFL Players Association decertified and pursued its claims in antitrust against the NFL, the continuing jurisdiction of Minnesota Federal District Court Judge David Doty was established as the venue for all legal claims arising out the CBA and any subsequent CBAs between the league and its players. For the last 16 years, Judge Doty’s courtroom has been the arena for virtually all disputes between the NFL and the NFLPA that have reached the courts. As another round of collective bargaining heats up, getting Doty off the case, especially after he ruled that Vick was entitled to keep the bonus money, would have been an important strategic victory for the league since Doty had already recognized the right of the players’ union to decertify and allow classes of players to pursue claims against the league in antitrust.

The league argued that Doty had erred in his prior ruling allowing Vick to keep the money and that his continued supervision of complaints arising out of Collective Bargaining Agreements was no longer necessary given changed circumstances, beginning when the U.S. Supreme Court decided the Brown v. Pro Football case in 1997, which held that an antitrust claim by the players against the owners was prohibited by the non-statutory labor exemption, the same piece of law that doomed Clarett’s claims against the league, too.

Further, the league argued that Doty had stated a clear and impermissible bias against the NFL. They based much of this claim on two interviews Doty gave, including one in the Sports Business Journal on the long history of his supervision of White class of claims.

APUp until the Vick decision, the NFL had been on a winning streak in federal appeals courts.

Today, a three-judge panel of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals distinguished the NFL’s arguments for removing the oversight of claims from Judge Doty’s courtroom from the Supreme Court’s decision in the Brown case, saying there were no changed circumstances to merit overturning the 1993 consent decree.

The Appeals Court came down a bit harder on Doty’s decision to talk to the media, saying he should have avoided creating an impression that he, as a judge, coveted publicity. But it found that the overall historical context of Doty’s management of this case refuted any claims of bias and denied the NFL’s motion on all counts.

This may not be an insignificant loss for the NFL. A motion to recuse a judge, accompanied by an argument that a judge is so biased as to be unable to do his job, should never be made lightly. Unless the NFL is successful in getting the Supreme Court to hear this case on appeal, which would seem doubtful given the standard of judicial review here, the NFL quite possibly will be stuck for the remainder of its current labor dispute against its players playing in front of a referee (Judge Doty) whose integrity it has already unsuccessfully maligned. So if he wasn’t mad at one side before, he has reason to be now. But more important, Doty is a judge who has already once given the players a great victory in allowing them to decertify and pursue antitrust claims, and he has shown no fear of finding against the owners when he feels so inclined. All this could have major impact in the ongoing labor battle.

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