The NFL scored a huge victory in court on Thursday when U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez decided to overturn the $4.7 billion verdict against the league that was handed out back in June.
During a hearing on Wednesday in Los Angeles, the league asked the court to throw out the verdict, and after thinking things over for 24 hours, Gutierrez granted the league’s wishes. The main reason Gutierrez decided to overturn the verdict is because he didn’t feel like the jury properly followed the instructions it was given by the court when it calculated the amount of damages that the NFL was going to owe in the case.
Over the course of the three-week trial, the jury had been presented three financial models that it could use to help calculate possible damages. At the end of the trial, Gutierrez had emphasized to the eight-person jury that they better not go rogue when trying to calculate a dollar amount for the verdict. “Damages may not be based on guesswork or speculation,” Gutierrez said on June 26, via the AP. “Plaintiffs must prove the reasonableness of each of the assumptions upon which the damages calculation is based.”
During the hearing on Wednesday, the NFL pointed out that the jury disregarded the judge’s warning and Gutierrez agreed.
“There’s no doubt about what they did,” Gutierrez said, via Courthouse News. “They didn’t follow the instructions.”
In his judgement that came out on Thursday, Gutierrez also pointed out that the models used to assess damages against the NFL didn’t really make any sense.
“The court agrees that Dr. Rascher’s and Dr. Zona’s testimonies based on their flawed methodologies should be excluded,” Gutierrez wrote. “And because there was no other support for the class-wide injury and damages elements of the plaintiffs’ claims, judgement as a matter of claw for the defendants is appropriate.”
The jury actually came up with its own formula for awarding damages — much to the chagrin of Gutierrez — which is how it landed on the $4.7 billion number, an amount that would have been as much as $14.1 billion since damages can be tripled in federal antitrust cases.
The jury ruled against the NFL because it believed the league worked together with its network partners to inflate the price of “Sunday Ticket.” The NFL was clearly thrilled when Gutierrez’s decision came in.
“We are grateful for today’s ruling in the Sunday Ticket class-action lawsuit,” the league said in a statement. “We believe the NFL’s media distribution model provides our fans with an array of options to follow the game they love, including local broadcast of every single game on free over-the-air television. We thank Judge Gutierrez for his time and attention to this case and look forward to an exciting 2024 NFL season.”
The NFL’s court victory came less than an hour after the 2024 preseason kicked off with the Hall of Fame game in Canton, Ohio. The $4.7 billion decision by Gutierrez will surely have a lot of people at NFL headquarters sleeping easier tonight.
