NFLPA says it has no legal fiduciary duty to retired players, seeks dismal of benefits lawsuit – NFL News
The National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) has questioned the legality of a lawsuit filed by a group of NFL retired players before a US federal judge and argued that the group should have made the NFL a party in the case, instead.
NFLPA has filed a motion before the US District Judge, Susan Richard Nelson, pleading the court for dismal of the retirees’ lawsuit, claiming it was “fatally flawed.”
According the union’s motion, the organisation does not have a legal fiduciary duty to the retired league players and that the NFL was right forum to have been sued by them.
Jeffrey Kessler, the attorney of the players’ association, argued that the lawsuit does not have a legal backing and therefore does not merit a hearing. He requested the judge for dismissal of it.
No ruling has so far been made by the court despite that it heard the parties, the complainants and defendants, on Wednesday, February 15, 2012.
Michael Hausfeld, the attorney for the group of retired players, earlier told the court that his clients have collectively been deprived of about half a billion dollars over the span of 10 years of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) they have reached
with the union.
His reference was to the content of the players’ lawsuit in which they claimed that they have not been paid the promised amount by the union and that the union has violated a court order by leaving them out of the talks around the agreement.
The attorney has earlier voiced similar concerns, while pleading on the behalf of the retirees for provision of promised benefits.
He said:
"The retirees don't begrudge the present players any income they merit, but at the same time they don't feel it was appropriate for the current players to essentially shortchange the retirees."
Former Minnesota Vikings defensive end, Carl Eller, is leading the group of the players. According to Eller, they are paid about $500 million less than what they had been promised by the NFLPA.
He admitted that there were some mistakes committed by the players themselves that pushed them back in the deserved payment of the amount.
"A lot of us did make bad decisions. We had our chance. We had our day at the park. I know that I certainly made bad decisions, but the point is that players today are still making bad decisions. And they're making millions of dollars. So what I'm saying
is let's work together to minimize those decisions.”
Now, he along with other members of the group, has reiterated to fight until they get the promised benefits and therefore were in court to plead their case.
A ruling on the NFLPA motion by the judge will determine the merit of the players’ lawsuit for hearing.
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