Some of you may recall that, in the days after the Spygate scandal first broke, a Jets season-ticket holder filed a class-action lawsuit against the Patriots and others claiming that games played between the Jets and the Pats in New Jersey did not reflect legitimate competition, given that the Pats were allegedly (or actually) cheating.
The case, based on various New Jersey legal principles including consumer protection laws, failed at the federal district court level. It also failed once again at the federal appeals court level. The last gasp came in the U.S. Supreme Court, where the judges first must agree to take on the case before actually addressing the merits.
According to multiple reports, the Supreme Court decided not to take up the case.
It’s not a surprising move. The U.S. Supreme Court typically gets involved only when the various federal circuit courts have issued conflicting rulings on similar subjects, or where the Supreme Court believes that a gross error has occurred.
And so the Spygate situation finally has concluded, nearly 3.5 years after it began.
For those of you who have been out of touch since September 9, 2007, the Jets caught a Patriots employee videotaping defensive coaching signals during a game. League officials got involved, and before too long the Patriots and coach Bill Belichick had been slapped with six-figure fines. The Pats also lost a first-round draft pick.