Federal appeals court dismisses Ezekiel Elliott case.

[///mcompact]

1 minute ago, OleXmad said:

He's not gonna clear his name by fighting the suspension. Anyone who thinks he's a woman beater isn't gonna change their opinion because he gets the NFL suspension overturned.

Obviously he should try and clear his name if he thinks that's best, but I doubt that's the main reason he's doing it.

I think you're underestimating how lazy the casual observers (aka: not fans like us on forums) are.   They don't spend time reading up on anything but headlines and will take the upheld suspension as a sign that he was "guilty",  while a vacated suspension will be seen as he was "not guilty". 

 

As for if he's doing it for reasons other than clearing his name?  Being labeled a woman beater is just a notch below being labeled a Pedo, IMO.  It's not just 6 game checks or potential sponsors he's losing, this is something that he'll have to carry till he's old.

 

 

[Forge]

We all knew that something like this was going to happen eventually. He was never going to win this part of it. He was going to serve this suspension sooner or later, he was just delaying it. 

[Phire]

Highly doubt another court grants another temporary injunction based on the same legal theories.

[Xmad]

14 minutes ago, ///mcompact said:

I think you're underestimating how lazy the casual observers (aka: not fans like us on forums) are.   They don't spend time reading up on anything but headlines and will take the upheld suspension as a sign that he was "guilty",  while a vacated suspension will be seen as he was "not guilty". 

 

As for if he's doing it for reasons other than clearing his name?  Being labeled a woman beater is just a notch below being labeled a Pedo, IMO.  It's not just 6 game checks or potential sponsors he's losing, this is something that he'll have to carry till he's old.

 

 

I'd think most people would take that he's not facing criminal charges as the indication he's not guilty (Whether or not he is a whole other debate) but you're probably right. 

Ray Lewis murdered a dude (or at the very least had a part in it) and he had a fine career and I'd say is well regarded enough that most casual fans would say he's a good person now. It's not unprecedented for a one time thing to eventually be overlooked if you do enough good, but again you're probably right.

 

[raiderrocker18]

23 minutes ago, Phire said:

Highly doubt another court grants another temporary injunction based on the same legal theories.

Why? The main basis of injunctions is to avoid irreparable harm. If zeke sits games, he's never getting those back and the league can't make it up to him. As opposed to something like a money judgment, the impact from missing an nfl game can't just be undone. 

The irreparable harm is no different in a Texas court than a new york court. The Texas one was only dropped because the suit was filed prematurely, not because the argument for the injunction was defective. 

It's not to say he's likely to end up winning the case and never serving his suspension. But the grounds for an injunction are still sound imo 

[Phire]

15 minutes ago, raiderrocker18 said:

Why? The main basis of injunctions is to avoid irreparable harm. If zeke sits games, he's never getting those back and the league can't make it up to him. As opposed to something like a money judgment, the impact from missing an nfl game can't just be undone. 

The irreparable harm is no different in a Texas court than a new york court. The Texas one was only dropped because the suit was filed prematurely, not because the argument for the injunction was defective. 

It's not to say he's likely to end up winning the case and never serving his suspension. But the grounds for an injunction are still sound imo 

I'm a lawyer. I recently was involved in litigation involving a temporary injunction sought against a public utility provider. The "main basis of injunctions is to avoid irreparable harm" is incorrect. Demonstrating that the claimant will suffer irreparable harm is one of four requirements for a temporary injunction to be granted, all equally weighted. The requirements are: 1) show irreparable harm without the injunction; 2) show no adequate remedy at law; 3) the claimant has a substantial likelihood of success on the merits; and 4) that the public benefits from the temporary injunction (very low bar).

The fact that the district court in Texas granted the temporary injunction in the first place was pretty questionable. Why? Because I personally don't see how Zeke has a substantial likelihood of success on the merits. And, based on your comment that "it's not to say he's likely to end up winning the case" I don't think you do either. Hell, does anyone here think Zeke has a  substantial likelihood of actually avoiding serving his suspension? 

I would submit that Zeke being a celebrity sports star in Texas is the only reason why he got the temporary injunction in the first place. I don't think a court in New York does him the same solid.

[Forge]

4 minutes ago, Phire said:

I'm a lawyer. I recently was involved in litigation involving a temporary injunction sought against a public utility provider. The "main basis of injunctions is to avoid irreparable harm" is incorrect. Demonstrating that the claimant will suffer irreparable harm is one of four requirements for a temporary injunction to be granted, all equally weighted. The requirements are: 1) show irreparable harm without the injunction; 2) show no adequate remedy at law; 3) the claimant has a substantial likelihood of success on the merits; and 4) that the public benefits from the temporary injunction (very low bar).

The fact that the district court in Texas granted the temporary injunction in the first place was pretty questionable. Why? Because I personally don't see how Zeke has a substantial likelihood of success on the merits. And, based on your comment that "it's not to say he's likely to end up winning the case" I don't think you do either. Hell, does anyone here think Zeke has a  substantial likelihood of actually avoiding serving his suspension? 

I would submit that Zeke being a celebrity sports star in Texas is the only reason why he got the temporary injunction in the first place. I don't think a court in New York does him the same solid.

But are you a good one?

[raiderrocker18]

6 minutes ago, Phire said:

I'm a lawyer. I recently was involved in litigation involving a temporary injunction sought against a public utility provider. The "main basis of injunctions is to avoid irreparable harm" is incorrect. Demonstrating that the claimant will suffer irreparable harm is one of four requirements for a temporary injunction to be granted, all equally weighted. The requirements are: 1) show irreparable harm without the injunction; 2) show no adequate remedy at law; 3) the claimant has a substantial likelihood of success on the merits; and 4) that the public benefits from the temporary injunction (very low bar).

The fact that the district court in Texas granted the temporary injunction in the first place was pretty questionable. Why? Because I personally don't see how Zeke has a substantial likelihood of success on the merits. And, based on your comment that "it's not to say he's likely to end up winning the case" I don't think you do either. Hell, does anyone here think Zeke has a  substantial likelihood of actually avoiding serving his suspension? 

I would submit that Zeke being a celebrity sports star in Texas is the only reason why he got the temporary injunction in the first place. I don't think a court in New York does him the same solid.

I'm a lawyer too. Just not licensed yet (get bar results in November lol). And oddly enough the bar I just took had an essay on TRO's and preliminary injunctions. 

I'm aware of the factors at play, but generally speaking irreparable harm is the one most heavily considered as it is the very basis of the purpose of TRO's and injunctions. 

I don't know that the factors are "equally weighed" though.  courts will judge all 4 in their totality. If the level of irreparable harm is very high, you'd balance that against the other factors proportionally. If the likelihood of success is remarkably low, it could outweigh the irreparable harm factor. It's all relative. 

What we do know:

there is no adequate legal remedy. This is simple. Money can't make up for missing a game. 

The public policy thing as you stated is a low bar and courts will always look in a light more favorable to employees in labor dispute. 

The irreparable harm is certainly very high. 

The likelihood of success on the merits is questionable based on Brady, but zekes team will argue the cases are very different. This was about the NFL's alleged sham of an appeals process rather than the weight of evidence the NFL requires to impose discipline 

[Phire]

You have four factors (in general, some jurisdictions and courts use different wording). The failure to demonstrate one of the four means you don't get your TRO. By definition that means they are equally weighted. You can't overcome the lack of one factor with the strength of another. The magnitude of the irreparable harm doesn't matter if you can't demonstrate a substantial likelihood on the merits. I don't see how there's any substantial likelihood on the merits, but Zeke's a celebrity, so another federal court doing him another solid wouldn't really surprise me. Zeke never should have gotten the first TRO. The district court should have done their jobs and ruled that he hadn't exhausted all of his contractual remedies.

[raiderrocker18]

I'm not suggesting they'd abandon the need to show a likelihood of success on the merits. 

One thing that could be throwing me off is that CA allows for the sliding scale model, by which a plaintiff can offset a weaker showing of success on merits with a stronger showing of irreparable harm, whereas federal courts have abandoned that approach, and we studied CA specific remedies. 

That said, the likelihood of success argument will hinge on the NFLPA distinguishing the Elliott case from the Brady case because they are challenging distinct NFL guidelines. 

Brady argued the league needed more evidence to suspend him. Elliott will probably make the crux of his case the NFL's internal appeals process and how they allegedly ignored their own officials recommendation in order to uphold the suspension and look strong. 

[jrry32]

1 hour ago, raiderrocker18 said:

I'm not suggesting they'd abandon the need to show a likelihood of success on the merits. 

One thing that could be throwing me off is that CA allows for the sliding scale model, by which a plaintiff can offset a weaker showing of success on merits with a stronger showing of irreparable harm, whereas federal courts have abandoned that approach, and we studied CA specific remedies. 

That said, the likelihood of success argument will hinge on the NFLPA distinguishing the Elliott case from the Brady case because they are challenging distinct NFL guidelines. 

Brady argued the league needed more evidence to suspend him. Elliott will probably make the crux of his case the NFL's internal appeals process and how they allegedly ignored their own officials recommendation in order to uphold the suspension and look strong. 

Federal courts haven't abandoned that approach. The stronger your showing of irreparable harm or likelihood of success on the merits, the weaker your showing of the other can be.

1 hour ago, Phire said:

You have four factors (in general, some jurisdictions and courts use different wording). The failure to demonstrate one of the four means you don't get your TRO. By definition that means they are equally weighted. You can't overcome the lack of one factor with the strength of another. The magnitude of the irreparable harm doesn't matter if you can't demonstrate a substantial likelihood on the merits. I don't see how there's any substantial likelihood on the merits, but Zeke's a celebrity, so another federal court doing him another solid wouldn't really surprise me. Zeke never should have gotten the first TRO. The district court should have done their jobs and ruled that he hadn't exhausted all of his contractual remedies.

Can you give us some analysis as to why? I think Judge Mazzant did a solid job of illustrating why Zeke was likely to succeed on the merits.

BTW, I'm going to lawyer you here, but your post is misleading. They aren't equally weighted, and you can overcome a weakness in one with a strength in another. You still have to meet the lessened standard, though.

As for the district court doing its job, it did do its job. It's easy to sit there and chastise them, but sometimes you have to make judgment calls. The appellate court disagreeing with your decision doesn't mean you didn't do your job with the judgment call. He applied the law and offered cogent analysis.

[y*so*blu]

Here we go again. Seems like this tacky saga is doomed to go on forever, or at least until the league is tired of it. Goodell is deathly afraid of himself or the NFL ever looking bad, so he has to pursue this to the bitter end just so the league can point to itself and go, "See? See? We're doing something, see? Look how great we are for doing something about this. See?!" What's going on in Zeke's mind, or what actually happened with him, I couldn't begin to tell you. Hopefully he's learned something from it though.

[Calvert28]

He fought the good fight but lost. Just take the hit, and come back stronger next year. We are already looking for a Top 10 pick with the way we are heading. So might as well. 

[jebrick]

3 hours ago, raiderrocker18 said:

Since they're on a bye, he still has a week and a half to go to the NY court and seek an injunction. He's pretty likely to get the injunction. When the case is ultimately heard, he'll probably lose because the NFL cba has some really strong language regarding the commissioners authority 

The judge will grant an injunction if they believe there is a good chance Elliot will win the case.  If you believe the last sentence then the judge would not grant an injunction because Elliot will lose.

I think the you are correct with the last sentence and Elliot will be serving his suspension.

[jrry32]

1 hour ago, jebrick said:

The judge will grant an injunction if they believe there is a good chance Elliot will win the case.  If you believe the last sentence then the judge would not grant an injunction because Elliot will lose.

I think the you are correct with the last sentence and Elliot will be serving his suspension.

Elliott isn't challenging Goodell's authority as far as I know. He's challenging the fairness of the process (i.e., he's challenging the arbitration on procedural grounds).