Eric Hard legal commentary on Judge Berman’s ruling in favor of Tom Brady on Fox 61 News.
00:00:00.000 Over at Wild Wings and Windsor Pats fans were undoubtedly overjoyed that Tom Brady will be starting for the season opener after a judge threw out his four-game suspension. Joining us right now is Eric Hard, who’s playing our legal quarterback. Full disclosure here though, he’s a Pats fan, so he’s happy today, but Eric is here as an observer to give us the mindset of Judge Richard Berman with this decision. So, what do you think was the biggest factor in him throwing out this whole suspension, completely wiping it out?
00:00:28.019 This decision today but Judge Berman is a civics lesson for America. It’s — You can go ahead and believe whatever you like about an accused person and we often convict them in our minds well before any decent evidence surfaces to really accomplish that in a court of law, or any other forum for that matter, and the judge said there has to be some modicum of fairness about the process. You may be able to be judge, jury, and executioner, as Goodell claimed he was able to under his collective bargaining agreement, but this judge said you’ve still got to act in a fair way and give somebody a chance to interview witnesses and get access to the documents on which you base the original punishment
00:01:02.760 And he was also pretty stern with the NFL and Roger Goodell, right? I mean basically like you said, Oh judge and jury hear, how you handled this, well, what was his comments about that?
00:01:16.650 I think he basically said that an arbitrator is not free to merely dispense his own brand of industrial justice; so he’s saying look this is like out in the Wild West or something, you seem to think you can do whatever you like and the answer is no, this is America we have certain safeguards that we accord to any accused person even in a, you know, something that is not a full criminal context.
00:01:36.570 Now the NFL is appealing. How likely would an appeal be victorious or actually successful?
00:01:42.360 You know it’s a very interesting question because we’re in a little corner of labor law here. Even though this judge, I think, made it clear this was a full win for Tom Brady and he was basically saying the NFL go on and get your shop in order, the appellate court could conceivably — the Second Circuit — could conceivably change the ruling sometime we’re down the pike, just for pure reasons of labor law, and one of the things that Nash, the attorney for the NFL, kept returning to whenever he was being vigorously questioned by judge Berman, he kept saying look article, you know, 46 lets us do this lets him be, you know, a king like figure.
00:02:22.020 Hmm, alright and then obviously this ruling today. We’re talking also about losing draft picks, that’s a penalty against the Patriots in this case but this doesn’t have anything to do with that, right?
00:02:31.920 That’s correct. That’s already said and done. That’s something that craft, as a strategic move, I think, offered to Goodell he just took his medicine and said we’re going to move on, enough of the rhetoric, and I think he clearly was hoping that Goodell was then going to go easy on Tom Brady then Goodell did just the opposite.
00:02:49.920 And you’ll be watching next Thursday night, won’t you?
00:02:50.980 Certainly will.
00:02:51.600 Alright. With his Patriots Jersey on! Thanks Eric, I appreciate it.
00:02:55.500 Thank you.
