Some New England Patriots fans will just not let it go.
After more than a year of fury over the “Deflategate” decision, even after it was mostly reversed, a group of fans is now taking a case to court.
In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday in the US District Court, with a home-field advantage in Boston, the fans demand that the NFL return the first-round draft pick taken from the team as punishment for the scandal. The suit seeks no monetary compensation.
Photo: AP
Fans live and die with their teams, and some surely suffer acutely when the team has a setback. However, legal experts say this suit has little chance of success.
“We have an uphill battle, but that never stopped a bunch of simple farmers with muskets from taking down a mighty repressive regime,” Seth Carey, the lawyer who filed the suit, said in a statement.
Michael McCann, a sports law professor at the University of New Hampshire School of Law, told The Associated Press: “Paying for a ticket to watch the Patriots play isn’t interfered with by the team losing a draft pick or two.”
Calling NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s decision to take away the draft pick “arbitrary and capricious,” the suit contends that fans of the team were harmed by it.
The main plaintiff, Todd Orsatti, a resident of Bristol, Connecticut, is a Patriots season-ticket holder who goes to games with his seven-year-old daughter.
“She will no longer go to games with him because she thinks the games are fixed by the NFL after her team was punished merely based on conjecture,” the suit says. “She is talking about finding another team, which has left Orsatti ‘devastated.’”
The suit names Goodell, the NFL and, oddly enough, Patriots owner Robert Kraft as defendants. Kraft is cited because he agreed to the loss of the pick.
“Defendant Robert Kraft had remedies to get plaintiff’s draft pick back, but he chose his fellow billionaire owners above the plaintiffs and fellow fans,” the suit says.
While quarterback Tom Brady successfully appealed his suspension over the incident, Kraft chose not to appeal the loss of draft picks.
“That attitude is the polar opposite of what the real patriots fought and died for on the very ground that NFL owners sit while they rake in billions of dollars from us fans,” Carey said in a statement.
The suit includes an exhaustive refutation of the charge that the Patriots intentionally deflated footballs.
It concludes by demanding a restraining order to keep the league from taking away the first-round draft pick at the NFL draft on April 28.
The NFL declined to comment.
Four-time NBA all-star DeMarcus Cousins arrived in Taiwan with his family early yesterday to finish his renewed contract with the Taiwan Beer Leopards in the T1 League. Cousins initially played a four-game contract with the Leopards in January. On March 18, the Taoyuan-based team announced that Cousins had renewed his contract. “Hi what’s up Leopard fans, I’m back. I’m excited to be back and can’t wait to join the team,” Cousins said in a video posted on the Leopard’s Facebook page. “Most of all, can’t wait to see you guys, the fans, next weekend. So make sure you come out and support the Beer
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was