Commissioner Roger Goodell won’t be answering questions under oath, after all.
After a Louisiana trial court judge ordered Goodell and three game officials to testify in the lawsuit filed over the outcome of the NFC Championship game, the NFL took the matter to the Louisiana Supreme Court -- and the Lousiana Supreme Court gave the NFL the ultimate win.
The Louisiana Supreme Court threw the case out on Friday, ending the litigation.
"[W]e find plaintiffs’ purchase of a ticket merely granted them the right of entry and a seat at the game,” the Lousiana Supreme Court explains in its four-page ruling. "[W]e find public policy considerations weigh in favor of restricting the rights of spectators to bring actions based on the conduct of officials of professional sporting leagues. . . . While we are certainly cognizant of the passion of sports fans, and particularly those who are fans of the New Orleans Saints, the courts are not the proper forum to litigate such disputes.”
So even if the outcome of a sporting event is influenced by gross fraud or outright corruption, those who bought a ticket to the game have no right to do anything about it, in Louisiana. Which means that, if the outcome of a sporting event ever is influenced by gross fraud or outright corruption, the effort to get to the truth will have to come in some other forum.
Of course, there’s no evidence that the Rams-Saints outcome resulted from gross fraud or outright corruption. The missed pass interference call resulted from a mistake by the officials, and from the absence of a mechanism for fixing it. The NFL has adopted, at least for 2019, a system for preventing such mistakes.