Deflategate judge ‘vastly exceeded’ his authority

The Patriots are undefeated through six games.

The NFL’s appeal filing has been released in its case against New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady in the scandal known as “Deflategate”.

Goodell suspended Brady for the first four games of this season back in May after a league-funded investigation found that the quarterback was at least “generally aware” that footballs had been partially deflated when the Patriots defeated the Indianapolis Colts on January 18 in the AFC Championship game. The ruling came down a week before the season began.

Manhattan federal court judge Richard Berman overturned Goodell’s four-game suspension of Brady in September, bashing the commissioner in his decision for “dispensing his own brand of industrial justice”.

“Brady participated in a scheme to interfere with the officials’ ability to enforce rules going to the very heart of the game, and then not only refused to cooperate with the investigation into that scheme, but also affirmatively obstructed that investigation by destroying highly relevant evidence”, the National Football League wrote. Whether this news becomes a distraction for Brady or the team remains to be seen but the Court of Appeals has said that the earliest arguments could be heard would be in February 2016.

In its brief, the NFL says Berman “vastly exceeded” his authority and it argues that Goodell has “broad authority to impose discipline” through the league’s collective bargaining agreement with the union.

They said Berman ignored decades of legal precedents and approached the case through a “fundamentally flawed” analysis, refusing to accept Goodell’s view of the facts.

The league eventually took Goodell’s decision to federal court in New York to be validated.

Berman said Goodell went too far in affirming punishment of the Super Bowl winning quarterback. “Where lower courts have committed a similar error, appellate courts have not hesitated to reverse”.