“Stuck between anger and depression over Sunday’s debacle in the Dome, a few dyspeptic New Orleans Saints fans have settled into an equally predictable stage of grief: litigation.” Among the claimed damages: “loss of enjoyment of life” [John Simerman, The Advocate]
Appellate lawyer Raffi Melkonian, on Twitter, writes: “Let me handicap this for everyone — this case has literally 0 chance of success. 0%. 100% minus 100%. It is dead on arrival. It is pushing up the daisies. A Court would rather deal with 200 sovereign citizen petitions than grant such relief.” More: Michael McCann, Sports Illustrated.
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and prior to the game Sunday, almost everybody would have said about the chance of the calls being completely ignored to be 0 chance, 0%, 100% minus 100%.
Note that I didn’t say “missed” but rather “ignored”.
If the referees at the game have to go to court to litigate this, it will do wonders to encourage all of the NFL referees to either quit or demand that the NFL provide legal coverage for them.
As a person who officiated sports at levels up to the college level, at the higher levels referees have litigation insurance. Even at lower levels (youth and lower schools) people get insurance for just such a thing. It’s cheap and well worth the peace of mind.
It would be inconceivable that the referees at the pro level don’t have litigation insurance.
http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/25863631/concern-nfl-4-officials-nfc-championship-game-live-southern-california
From the ESPN report:
Referee Bill Vinovich, who led the game’s officiating crew, lives in Newport Beach, California. Down judge Patrick Turner, whose primary responsibility was to follow (Tommylee) Lewis on the blown call from start to finish, lives in Lakewood, California, in Los Angeles County.
Side judge Gary Cavaletto, whose job was to initially watch outside receiver Dan Arnold before shifting his focus once the ball was thrown to Lewis, lives in Santa Barbara, California. Back judge Todd Prukop, who was stationed in the end zone as an extra set of eyes on the controversial play, lives in Mission Viejo, California.