A federal judge has denied a request by seven New England Patriots fans for a temporary restraining order to bar the National Football League from giving away the Patriots’ first-round draft pick April 28.
The fans’ request was denied before defendants could object or before a hearing was scheduled because the federal judge didn’t want to waste taxpayer dollars on a hearing.
In his order, Judge Dennis Saylor said that “after reviewing the complaint, it appears highly unlikely that plaintiffs will succeed on the merits of any of their claims.”
Saylor also ruled that the seven fans are not likely to prove they have standing to make the claims in their complaint, or that they were parties to any contract with defendants, or that defendants owed the plaintiffs “any relevant duty of care.” And, the judge ruled, it’s unlikely the fans can prove any identifiable injury for the court to repair.
Patriots fans Todd Orsatti of Bristol, Conn., David Vacarro of Plainville, Mass., Michael DiMauro of Orlando, Fla., Fairuz Zein of Cambridge, Mass., Ken Wlodarcyzk of Sewell, N.J., Joseph Payne of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Feihua Chang of Newton, Mass., filed a lawsuit last week against the National Football League, Commissioner Roger Goodell and Patriots owner Robert Kraft.
The fans claim they have suffered emotional damage, embarrassment and other damages by the NFL’s action revoking the New England team’s first-round draft picks following the controversial 2015 AFC championship game between the New England Patriots and the Indianapolis Colts that launched “Deflategate.”
According to the suit, the fans claim they have been forced to deal with “embarrassment, ridicule and depression due to the rest of the country who is jealous of the Patriots ‘piling on’ and criticizing the Patriots and their fans for being ‘cheaters.’”
Specifically, season ticket holder Orsatti claims he is “devastated” by his 7-year-old daughter’s decision to find another team to follow, and DiMauro claims damages after having spent “a considerable amount of money to watch the Patriots from Florida on NFL” channel.
The group had sought to halt the NFL from handing out the Patriots’ first-round draft pick to another team. It also claimed Kraft “chose his fellow billionaire owners above the plaintiffs and fellow fans” after agreeing to NFL sanctions.
In his order denying the fans’ request for a temporary restraining order, Saylor noted that the federal courts are “courts of limited resources, funded by the taxpayers, and it would not be a prudent expenditure of those resources to permit the motion to progress to the hearing stage.”
The plaintiff fans are represented by Rumford attorney Seth Carey, who is facing disciplinary action before the Maine Board of Overseers of the Bar on an unrelated matter.
On Tuesday, attorneys John Bueker and John Donovan of the Boston firm Ropes & Gray entered their joint appearance on behalf of the NFL and Goodell.
jmeyer@sunjournal.com
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