Some troubling comments attributed to Terry Pegula (and denied by Pegula) and Jerry Jones from SI Writer Jim Trotter’s Lawsuit against the NFL

[Cascade Youth]

18 minutes ago, That Aud Smell said:

Hmm. Interesting.

Fair deuce.

It’s still a well-drafted pleading.

No doubt, they’re great at what they do, which is branding themselves as a firm and using the media to litigate (starting with well-written but sensationalized pleadings).  

[nfreeman]

2 hours ago, That Aud Smell said:

As stated upthread, the issue appears to be equally if not more about what the league did and didn’t do in response to the alleged statement being raised. The facts alleged on that issue are pretty specific.

Trotter has big boy lawyers. Wigdor is a small shop, but they are Chambers rated. You only get that rating when the bench and bar agree that your firm is top notch. That complaint appears to be excellent work product. I’m assuming that the lawyers performed due diligence on what they view as the relevant facts.

That's the primary issue of the lawsuit, sure -- but the pursuit of that objective doesn't make it OK for Trotter to recklessly smear TP or anyone else with a major character assassination 

YMMV, of course.

[Cascade Youth]

13 minutes ago, nfreeman said:

That's the primary issue of the lawsuit, sure -- but the pursuit of that objective doesn't make it OK for Trotter to recklessly smear TP or anyone else with a major character assassination 

YMMV, of course.

It does not.  You’re correct.  But this is the same law firm that represents Brian Flores in his suit against the NFL and, despite him having a binding arbitration clause, filed a public Complaint which casually included an allegation of tanking against the Dolphins’ owner.  Which was not at all necessary for Flores’ claims - but got plenty of clicks.  This is just what they do.

[nfreeman]

35 minutes ago, Cascade Youth said:

It does not.  You’re correct.  But this is the same law firm that represents Brian Flores in his suit against the NFL and, despite him having a binding arbitration clause, filed a public Complaint which casually included an allegation of tanking against the Dolphins’ owner.  Which was not at all necessary for Flores’ claims - but got plenty of clicks.  This is just what they do.

I completely agree about this law firm.  I also think though that ultimately the decision to smear TP like this is Trotter’s, and he’s accountable for doing so.  

[darksabre]

"We don't like that the lawyers are being mean, which is what they always do, and it's also the plaintiff's fault" is quite the conclusion. 

[PASabreFan]

20 minutes ago, nfreeman said:

I completely agree about this law firm.  I also think though that ultimately the decision to smear TP like this is Trotter’s, and he’s accountable for doing so.  

I like that you're not even pretending to be fair and balanced anymore. It's also funny that it's only Trotter that YOU want to smear, not the person who voiced the alleged quote at the Zoom meeting. Part of the lawsuit is how the league handled the allegation and the impact on Trotter for making a complaint about it. Trotter is merely reporting a fact... his colleague's voicing of the quote.

TP should have sued that dude if the quote was made up. He's certainly not suing Trotter.

 

[Night Train]

3 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

 Trotter is merely reporting a fact.

 Fact ?  Wow. That's a leap of faith. Faith that TP is guilty. You've implied it in most every post. 

 "Fair and balanced" is letting it play out with actual hard evidence. Not defending TP at all but guilty by accusation will never fly. Don't know Trotter at all and actually what happened.  

[That Aud Smell]

1 hour ago, Cascade Youth said:

It does not.  You’re correct.  But this is the same law firm that represents Brian Flores in his suit against the NFL and, despite him having a binding arbitration clause, filed a public Complaint which casually included an allegation of tanking against the Dolphins’ owner.  Which was not at all necessary for Flores’ claims - but got plenty of clicks.  This is just what they do.

Interesting.

Not terrible litigation strategy, btw. I mean -- it's out on the edge. But if your opponent is an absolute behemoth and has billions of intangible value tied up in its brand, it's a logical play. Embarrass the sh1t out of them and use that as a pain point.

And if the extraneous allegation were found to have been made with knowledge of its falsity, well, then, there are remedies and penalties for that.

I very much doubt such a claim would ever be proven, though.

36 minutes ago, nfreeman said:

I also think though that ultimately the decision to smear TP like this is Trotter’s, and he’s accountable for doing so.  

Speaking of being out there on the edge.

[That Aud Smell]

10 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

Trotter is merely reporting a fact... his colleague's voicing of the quote.

2 minutes ago, Night Train said:

 Fact ?  Wow. That's a leap of faith. Faith that TP is guilty. You've implied it in most every post. 

 "Fair and balanced" is letting it play out with actual hard evidence. Not defending TP at all but guilty by accusation will never fly. Don't know Trotter at all and actually what happened.  

I think you're speaking past each other here a bit.

@PASabreFan may have his finger on a somewhat nuanced legal issue. Trotter is in a position to testify, under oath and in admissible form, that an unnamed media colleague said something in a meeting that was attributed to Pegula. He can probably (?) testify to that not for the truth of the matter asserted -- that Pegula said it -- but for the purpose of establishing that, in that meeting, a colleague related that (alleged) quote to other NFL brass and that, thereafter, NFL brass swept the matter under the rug. There are principles of hearsay here that I'm a little fuzzy on. But I think I have it substantially correct.

See how that works? It's a clever bit of lawyering, tbh.

[nfreeman]

10 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

I like that you're not even pretending to be fair and balanced anymore. It's also funny that it's only Trotter that YOU want to smear, not the person who voiced the alleged quote at the Zoom meeting. Part of the lawsuit is how the league handled the allegation and the impact on Trotter for making a complaint about it. Trotter is merely reporting a fact... his colleague's voicing of the quote.

TP should have sued that dude if the quote was made up. He's certainly not suing Trotter.

 

What?

While I agree that TP also has a beef against the unnamed person who allegedly told the story at the zoom meeting -- which itself is far from a "fact" -- Trotter is the one who, in the effort to squeeze the NFL, has published the smear, which includes numerous statements referring to "what Mr. Pegula had said given that it was so highly offensive and racist", "Mr. Pegula's discriminatory remarks", etc.

My point all along -- which I think you understand -- has been that IF TP didn't say it, he's plenty justified in suing Trotter.

I have no idea why you think TP is "certainly not suing Trotter."

[nfreeman]

8 minutes ago, That Aud Smell said:

Speaking of being out there on the edge.

What does this mean?

[That Aud Smell]

5 minutes ago, nfreeman said:

What does this mean?

It means that this -->

50 minutes ago, nfreeman said:

I also think though that ultimately the decision to smear TP like this is Trotter’s, and he’s accountable for doing so.  

has no if's or but's about it. Which yields a take that Trotter is acting in bad faith in order to defame Pegula. Which is sorta nuts, based on what we presently know (and don't know).

[LGR4GM]

49 minutes ago, darksabre said:

"We don't like that the lawyers are being mean, which is what they always do, and it's also the plaintiff's fault" is quite the conclusion. 

DARK! HI! 

[Curt]

11 hours ago, nfreeman said:

As one of the frothers, my suspicion is that the accusation was made recklessly, not maliciously — and IMHO if you smear someone with a serious accusation like this recklessly, you deserve to get sued.  

 

11 hours ago, qwksndmonster said:

Are you going to sue me for the times I called you racist?

 

11 hours ago, Curt said:

People don’t always get what they deserve.

 

9 hours ago, qwksndmonster said:

lmao what.

@qwksndmonster, I thought it was a pretty clear line of thought.

It was really a jest though.  I have no idea if you deserve to be sued or not.

[Cascade Youth]

21 minutes ago, That Aud Smell said:

I think you're speaking past each other here a bit.

@PASabreFan may have his finger on a somewhat nuanced legal issue. Trotter is in a position to testify, under oath and in admissible form, that an unnamed media colleague said something in a meeting that was attributed to Pegula. He can probably (?) testify to that not for the truth of the matter asserted -- that Pegula said it -- but for the purpose of establishing that, in that meeting, a colleague related that (alleged) quote to other NFL brass and that, thereafter, NFL brass swept the matter under the rug. There are principles of hearsay here that I'm a little fuzzy on. But I think I have it substantially correct.

See how that works? It's a clever bit of lawyering, tbh.

You generally have it right, but where hearsay evidence is being offered not for its truth but for something else (like the fact of a report made by Trotter and the NFL’s response), the judge will need to weigh its probative value against the potential for prejudice.  Here, it’s impossible to predict how that will come out: the potential for prejudice is high (because the NFL will argue that jurors will be confused about a hearsay instruction and will unfairly assume the truth of the statement and it hold against the NFL, i.e., deem it to be racist).  What I’ve often seen judges do in this scenario is rule that the statement can come in with some verbal redactions - i.e., Trotter may be permitted to testify that he heard from a colleague that an unnamed (to the jury) owner made a comment that could be construed as racist.  The problem here of course is that it’s too late for Terry, his name has already been smeared publicly.

[nfreeman]

10 minutes ago, That Aud Smell said:

It means that this -->

has no if's or but's about it. Which yields a take that Trotter is acting in bad faith in order to defame Pegula. Which is sorta nuts, based on what we presently know (and don't know).

OK.  I was simply making the point that the smear wasn't solely the law firm's doing.

More broadly, I've said multiple times in this thread in the last day or 2, including to you directly, that we don't know the facts here, that TP should sue IF he didn't say it and IF further factual inquiry indicates that Trotter was acting recklessly, etc.  If you want to ignore those clearly stated predicates in reaching a conclusion about my views, you're of course free to do so.

 

[That Aud Smell]

39 minutes ago, Cascade Youth said:

the judge will need to weigh its probative value against the potential for prejudice.  Here, it’s impossible to predict how that will come out

yeah - that's an interesting one to contemplate. it's a fookin hand grenade, for sure. i appreciate the give and take.

[That Aud Smell]

38 minutes ago, nfreeman said:

If you want to ignore those clearly stated predicates in reaching a conclusion about my views, you're of course free to do so.

i was just reading what you wrote in that one post. and i recalled generally what you'd said previously. it seemed to me that you were moving past a posture where you'd withhold judgment.

[PASabreFan]

1 hour ago, Night Train said:

 Fact ?  Wow. That's a leap of faith. Faith that TP is guilty. You've implied it in most every post. 

 "Fair and balanced" is letting it play out with actual hard evidence. Not defending TP at all but guilty by accusation will never fly. Don't know Trotter at all and actually what happened.  

I've been as evenhanded as anyone in this thread. Show me where I've implied his "guilt." Anyway you missed the point or I wasn't clear. It's a fact that the second reporter mentioned the quote during the Zoom call. Some in desperation to defend TP have suggested even that didn't happen, which is ridiculous.

[shrader]

1 hour ago, nfreeman said:

What?

While I agree that TP also has a beef against the unnamed person who allegedly told the story at the zoom meeting -- which itself is far from a "fact" -- Trotter is the one who, in the effort to squeeze the NFL, has published the smear, which includes numerous statements referring to "what Mr. Pegula had said given that it was so highly offensive and racist", "Mr. Pegula's discriminatory remarks", etc.

My point all along -- which I think you understand -- has been that IF TP didn't say it, he's plenty justified in suing Trotter.

I have no idea why you think TP is "certainly not suing Trotter."

I don't know a thing about Trotter, but I don't believe it was his intention to go after Pegula at all here.  It's the media who jumped all over one small portion of the legal documents and threw Pegula under the bus.  He's not the one out there writing these headlines, the only thing that the majority of people out there actually read.  That belittles Trotter's case as well, making it all about Pegula instead.

[That Aud Smell]

11 minutes ago, shrader said:

I don't know a thing about Trotter, but I don't believe it was his intention to go after Pegula at all here.  It's the media who jumped all over one small portion of the legal documents and threw Pegula under the bus.  He's not the one out there writing these headlines, the only thing that the majority of people out there actually read.  That belittles Trotter's case as well, making it all about Pegula instead.

And this goes to a point that @Cascade Youthmade about the plaintiff’s lawyers — very media savvy.

[Quint]

 

[Zamboni]

Aaaaand another roughly 24 hours later… I still say…

 

I’ll choose to believe it’s a bunch of untrue crap. Until it’s not.

[MattPie]

3 hours ago, Night Train said:

 Fact ?  Wow. That's a leap of faith. Faith that TP is guilty. You've implied it in most every post. 

 "Fair and balanced" is letting it play out with actual hard evidence. Not defending TP at all but guilty by accusation will never fly. Don't know Trotter at all and actually what happened.  

As the other have pointed out, there doesn't need to be hard evidence of the statement, since that's not actually what the lawsuit is about. The lawsuit (as I understand it) is that John Trotter heard from a colleague that someone said that, reported it through the NFL's process, it wasn't really followed up on, and then Trotter was sent packing. This is classic whistle-blower stuff as it's laid out. It's kinda slimy that the complaint mentions an owner by name, but I'd think that'd come out in the evidence since presumably the NFL has records of the investigation. Unless there wasn't one, and that's the point. I'd hope that Trotter "kept the receipts" and has the evidence on what he directly experienced since that's the actual question.

As a side note, I think some people wonder why the original person isn't making the complaint or named. Where I work, people are encouraged to report things even if they only witnessed or were told of the issue and not directly involved. There's a lot of reasons someone would be afraid to report something, such as (oh, I dunno) losing their job or getting blackballed in the industry despite "protections". So I don't find that part odd. I'm reasonably senior and established where I work, so I could absolutely imagine a situation where one of the junior people I work with would be wary of being branded as a troublemaker where I could report and not have it be a career-destroying move (even if I got forced out of this job).

[SwampD]

5 hours ago, darksabre said:

"We don't like that the lawyers are being mean, which is what they always do, and it's also the plaintiff's fault" is quite the conclusion. 

It's like an eclipse just ended.

 

I'll say it again, back when this was all going down, it was reported that TP came away from those meetings looking very bad. I think it's funny that now that we might know why, some are saying it didn't even happen.

I believe he said something stupid. It may not have been what Trotter said he said, in fact, I don't believe it was, but at this point, I wouldn't be surprised by anything.

 

And I'll guarantee that we will never find out what was actually said.