NFLPA Cites 12 Points Of Appeal To Retired Players' Verdict

By Daniel Kaplan, Staff Writer, SportsBusiness Journal

The NFLPA in a four-page filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit late last week cited 12 points of appeal to a jury's November verdict awarding a class of retired players $28.1M. The jury found the NFLPA failed to properly market the players and awarded them $7.1M, plus $21M in punitive damages. In its appeal points, the NFLPA suggested the jury got confused and awarded $7.1M because that is the same amount retired players in the class received as part of one off licensing deals. The NFLPA also said that under DC law, which the case was tried under, punitive damages can only be awarded for "evil motive and outrageous conduct." Among the other points are whether the jury's award of damages for breach of fiduciary duty was consistent with the defense's damages expert who presented no such estimate; whether the judge erred in not instructing the jury that the plaintiffs had the burden to prove damages to each class member (there were 2,056 of them); whether plaintiffs met their burden to prove such damages; whether the district court should have even certified the class, and in doing so apply DC law; whether the district court erred in not noting conflicts between class members who had and had not received licensing money; whether the court's instructions to the jury on what constitutes a fiduciary duty contradicted DC law; and did the court err in not disallowing evidence of scrambling of retired player images in video games because the court had stated such actions were lawful. A decision on the appeal is not expected until sometime next year.