Judge overturns $4.7 billion verdict in "Sunday Ticket" case against NFL

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: CBS News/AP

August 1, 2024 / 9:21 PM EDT


A federal judge has overturned a jury's $4.7 billion verdict in the class-action lawsuit filed by "Sunday Ticket" subscribers against the NFL and has granted judgment to the NFL.

U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez ruled Thursday that the testimony of two witnesses for the subscribers had flawed methodologies and should have been excluded. "Without the testimonies of Dr. (Daniel) Rascher and Dr. (John) Zona, no reasonable jury could have found class-wide injury or damages," Gutierrez wrote at the end of his 16-page ruling.

The jury on June 27 awarded $4.7 billion in damages to residential and commercial subscribers after it ruled the NFL violated antitrust laws in distributing out-of-market Sunday afternoon games on a premium subscription service.

The lawsuit covered 2.4 million residential subscribers and 48,000 businesses in the United States who paid for the package on DirecTV of out-of-market games from the 2011 through 2022 seasons.

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nfl-sunday-ticket-lawsuit-judge-overturns-verdict/

[jvill]

1. The rich will not be held accountable.

The system will not allow it.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

2. Why even waste the jurors' time?

The underlying message is: take weeks from your life to go through the never-ending procedures involved with being selected for the jury (voir dire), listen attentively to hours of testimony, spend even more hours of evaluating and discussing the evidence and arriving at a verdict, spend additional hours determining a fair and reasonable amount of damages --

only to have the f*cking judge throw the whole thing out the window because of something that could have been resolved on a motion for directed verdict before the jury even received its instructions.

I think jury trials should be reserved for criminal matters. For lawsuits to determine civil matters jurors should be paid a reasonable amount -- $200 - $500 daily -- and decide for themselves whether they want to get involved in a purely personal (corporations are people, my friend) dispute.

[Mosby]

3. Or maybe use panels of judges or rotating groups of experts

It seems like a lot of these civil cases are too complicated for everyday people, so they're easily manipulated by the lawyers.

[moniss]

4. I'd be checking

this guy and all of his family members financials real close for the next 10 years or so.