With the league’s attempt to persuade a federal appeals court to reconsider its decision not to overturn a lower-court decision that allows Vikings defensive tackles Kevin and Pat William to continue to fight their four-game suspensions in Minnesota state court failed, the NFL is exploring its next step.
According to Brian Murphy of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, the league is pondering whether to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case.
The NFL apparently has been emboldened by the fact that four of the eleven judges disagreed with the decision not to grant a full rehearing of the prior decision before the full court.
“While we would have preferred the full Court of
Appeals to hear the case, we are encouraged that four members of the
court took the rare and extraordinary step of dissenting and doing so
at length,” NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said, per Murphy. “They
identified the flaws . . . and agreed with our position.
“We will consider our options in light of today’s decision and remain confident in both the eventual outcome of this litigation and the importance of maintaining a uniform, national policy on performance-enhancing drugs.”
The reality is that, if two of those four judges had been assigned to the random three-judge panel in the first place, the NFL would have prevailed before the appellate court, forcing the players and the union to pursue further relief, such as a request for rehearing by the full court.
So the NFL now has to ask itself whether there’s a chance that five of nine black-robed federal employees with a current tilt in favor of business interests would first agree to take up the case, and then agree with the NFL’s position.
The fact that the NFL recently has persuaded the Supreme Court to take up an antitrust issue could work against the league in this context, since there are only so many cases that the Supreme Court will agree to decide in a given year. Also, the Supreme Court tends to gravitate toward cases that demonstrate a disagreement among various different federal courts, which would make a binding decision from the highest court in the country useful.
In our view, the ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit complies with current federal labor law, as interpreted by the Supreme Court. The fix is easy; the relevant labor laws need to be amended by Congress to ensure that, when a collective bargaining agreement sets forth a drug-testing policy, the CBA supersedes the laws of any of the 50 states that might require a different approach.
The NFL could also be looking at the fact that there is now a justice, Sotomayor, who has already ruled in there favor on an important issue once before, with the Maurice Clarett case.
The US Supreme Court has nothing better to do than to sooth the ongoing temper tantrum of the NFL?
Get a clue Goodel & the rest of the league clowns. It is time to move on and get it right this time when you work out the next collective bargaining agreement instead of pounding your tiny little fists against the wall and bawling that if just isn’t fair.
Whatever happens, the NFL will be shown for what they really are, and that is a bunch of liars. Roger Goodell doesn’t have a leg to stand on in this case, the facts will come out that he knew about this product, and he failed to let the players union or the teams know about it.
Players can’t be held reliable for a ingredient that is unknowingly put into a product and purposely left off a active ingredients list. If all of the other ingredients checked out fine according to the NFL’s list of banned substance, then the product should have been perfectly fine to take. The NFL knew about this product and failed to inform anyone about it, and just stood back and waited until they could suspend players for taking it. If anything, the NFL should be held accountable for allowing their players to take a potentially harmful product and not warning them about it.
Oh well, its no different then the NFL not taking care of their players in any other case. Past football players have been paralyzed, have had brain damage, severe life threatening injuries, been left homeless, and what has the NFL done for them? Absolutely nothing. Its alright for the NFL to make money off of these players when they are superstars, but when they get older and have problems, where is the NFL? Nowhere to be seen. The NFL is a damn joke on how they treat people, and they should be held accountable for that.
Florio -
Your comments here are right on…
At issue here isn’t how to interpret the law (which is what the Supreme Court does)…
At issue is the law itself, which must be corrected by the people who make laws (Congress).
That being said…
Do I want my govt spending time on this issue or trying to fix our current jobs, climate, economy, war and other such issues? I’ll choose the laundry list of things that are FAR more important.
Its pretty unbelievable that they continue like this. Like they want to keep pursing their own flawed system. Makes you wonder if they have pissed away enough on this witchhunt to equal the salary of one of the laid off NFL employees salaries. Thats a better place to spend some money. Goodell could have better use of his time tickling his own asshole.
From tiny acorns, great oaks grow. Or something like that.
Good grief. In my ongoing effort to fully understand all the permutations of this case, I have miserably failed. I am now reduced to mere reflection that one day a football player took a pill (the acorn), and then another player and another pill, etc., and now the highest court in the country may be directing its attention to this full-blown oak tree.
Sometimes 10 minutes of fame ain’t what it’s cracked up to be.
Yeah, the fix is easy. Just destroy federalism and the US Constitution. That was easy.
Unbelievable that people think this is a waste of taxpayers’ money. What’s at stake is the legality of whether employers can institute a drug testing policy and have its employees adhere to the punishment handed down when they’ve been caught. Now what may decide the case is not whether the NFL has precedent to punish those that failed the test (which it does) but whether the whole process concerning “Starcaps” was legal and should have been binding. That’s the crux for which the players are arguing. This has ramifications for all other industries that do institute drug testing policies. Therefore, sending it to the Supreme Court doesn’t sound so far-fetched.
The NFL is acting like spoiled brats that didn’t get their way. Dude you guys lost….. repeatedly.
Now they have the audacity to bog down the supreme court with…. Sports issues?! The court better reject this nonsense. Seriously NFL, you guys look like morons.
lost in all of this is the TRUE injustice which is some players are getting suspended for diuretics while some arent. joselio hanson got caught with diuretics WELL after the williams’ and he’s already served his suspension and the williams’ are nowhere close to being suspended.
Congress doesn’t need to get involved, and really shouldn’t as it would be interfering with future CBA talks between the NFL & the union. I believe the NFL is fighting this thing so strongly because it hopes either the courts or Congress will step in and clean up a mess they created by not being diligent, as well as take away a bargaining chip from the NFLPA.
Clearly the NFL neglected to look into individual state laws before drafting the drug testing policy and it’s wording in the last CBA. Now they don’t want to be held accountable for their gaffe. Other interstate businesses seem to manage multiple state laws, so the NFL shouldn’t be any different.
The problem is the NFL knows the only way to correct the situation, without outside help, is to bring it to the negotiating table, which they don’t want to do. I’m sure the NFLPA agrees there should be a uniformed drug testing policy; it’s only fair. However, that concession will in all likelihood, whether it be an amendment to the current CBA or a major point of reference in the new one, come at a huge price.
It’s all part of the negotiating process, but the NFL doesn’t want to pay the price and the NFLPA doesn’t want Congress or the courts to give their bargaining chip away for free.
The NFL won’t take hell no for an answer after 3 tries, so they may as well try again. The arrrogance of the NFL is noted in the press release. Let them appeal to the Supremes. By the time the case is decided, all the players will be retired. The law is frigging clear as hell, as is the fix — just note in the new collective bargaining agreement that the agreement pre-empts state law. What a waste.
The NFL talks about this as if the Williams case result has any real bearing on the future of the system. The Williams case exposes flaws in the legality in their system that they need to fix. If they “win” and suspend the Williams players they still have to fix their current flawed system unless they want to have to go through this battle every time a player from a state with certain laws protecting its employees from suspension or termination without due process.
They failed to account for existing state labor laws. Now they are begging the feds to over rule the lower court.
They make irrelevant statements like how important it is to have a fair league wide substance rule going forward. This specific case is irrelevant towards that goal because either way they need to fix the legality of the current system moving forward. They can’t just win this one and leave the system as it is and not expect any other problems. Sure, if they win this they have precedent for future legal battles but they’d be much better off to close the loop hole altogether.
The NFL is wasting their effort on this, especially considering that the players weren’t actually using performance enhancing drugs but rather a dietary supplement that contained an unclaimed ingredient. The icing on the cake is the league could have prevented the case by sending a specific memo out when they learned of these ingredients in this specific product.
It would be different if they had tested for steroids or had masking agent levels high enough to indicate they were being used to hide steroids. Or even if they had an exotic agent that current cheaters try to use rather than some outdated easily tested for diuretic. But in this case they clearly weren’t cheating, nor is the NFL accusing them of cheating.
Time to just admit the system wasn’t written correctly, fire someone, and move on. All the NFL is demonstrating at this point is that they have a legal team without much to work on at the moment.
sando says:
“Time to just admit the system wasn’t written correctly, fire someone, and move on. All the NFL is demonstrating at this point is that they have a legal team without much to work on at the moment”
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I wouldn’t be surprised if all of the players’ league-imposed fine money is funding this top-shelf legal team.
Congress cannot fix anything by writing some law which would violate the Tenth Amendment, which is only 28 words long and can be read by any fifth grader. The states are empowered to write law. The states created the federal government; it was not the other way around. The NFL should quit wasting everyone’s time and write a drug policy that is actually legal in all the states in which they do business, like any sane enterprise might have considered doing in the first place.
This is where I disagree Mr Florio. Laws should not be adjusted to fit individual CBA’s… The CBA should be adjusted to fit with in the laws that govern it. With all the lawyers that The players union and The NFL employ It should not be a problem to work out Waiver Clause in the CBA.
Just write that the collective bargaining agreement pre-empts state law??? What kind of nonsense is that? Any agreement that violates the law is not a valid contract and therefore unenforceable in court.
Or do some of us think Dr. Kervorkian could have avoided going to prison by just having all his clients sign a little note saying Michigan law does not apply to us?
The NFL and NFLPA are not governments.
The next time you get caught speeding, try handing a state trooper a note saying the law does not apply to you under a written agreement with your mother. I want to see the video.
Over the decades the 10th amendent has been taken away by the liberal courts. They have ruled that the “interstate commerce clause” supercedes the Bill of Rights.
As a huge supporter of the Bill of Rights I would like to see a case that reinstates at least some recognition of the 10th Amendment.
Unfortunately this could be the case where a couple of obese lazy cheaters completely and finally obliterates the 10th Amendment. What part of the Bill of Rights is next?
The fat cheating ignorants who claim they are too incompetent to be responsible for what they put in their mouth are terrible citizens. They should drop their case and take their punishment like real patriotic men rather than hold hostage the American people to some commie Liberals anxious to kill the Bill of Rights and destroy Liberty.
God save us from such short sighted selfish evil rulebreakers and the enemies of Liberty.
Vikes-N-Favre says:
December 15, 2009 11:42 AM
Whatever happens, the NFL will be shown for what they really are, and that is a bunch of liars. Roger Goodell doesn’t have a leg to stand on in this case, the facts will come out that he knew about this product, and he failed to let the players union or the teams know about it.
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Please show us all the part of the collective bargaining agreement where it says the league office needs to test every supplement, drug and food on the market and then report its contents to the players union or teams. Please, I beg you. Show us how the NFL did not meet the terms of the collective bargaining agreement.
The simple fact is that the league office HAS NO RESPONSIBILITY to test drugs and report their contents to the players. NONE. So your argument is completely off base.
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Vikes-N-Favre says:
December 15, 2009 11:42 AM
Players can’t be held reliable for a ingredient that is unknowingly put into a product and purposely left off a active ingredients list. If all of the other ingredients checked out fine according to the NFL’s list of banned substance, then the product should have been perfectly fine to take. The NFL knew about this product and failed to inform anyone about it, and just stood back and waited until they could suspend players for taking it. If anything, the NFL should be held accountable for allowing their players to take a potentially harmful product and not warning them about it.
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Yes, in fact players CAN be held liable for spiked Bumetanide. It was in their system. That’s the rule. If it’s in your system, you’re guilty.