Four years ago, then-former Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores filed a lawsuit against the Dolphins, New York Giants and Denver Broncos alleging racial discrimination in their hiring practices.
On Feb. 13, Flores – fresh off his third season as the Minnesota Vikings’ defensive coordinator – earned a key win in the case.
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that all of Flores’ claims against those franchises will be handled in court instead of arbitration with the league, per documents obtained by USA TODAY Sports.
Judge Valerie Caproni’s ruling denied the NFL’s motion for arbitration and continues the line from last year’s ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. That ruling denied arbitration as well.
‘The Second Circuit concluded that Flores’ agreement to submit his claims to the discretion of the designated arbitrator, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, provides for arbitration in name only and, accordingly, lacks the protection of the FAA (Federal Arbitration Act),’ Caproni wrote in the ruling. ‘The agreement is, therefore, unenforceable because it fails to guarantee that Flores can ‘vindicate [his] statutory cause of action in [an] arbitral forum.’
The ruling found that the NFL’s Dispute Resolution Procedural Guidelines (DRPG) are not an applicable way to settle this dispute. The court disagreed with the franchises’ argument that the DRPG had satisfactory procedures in place for resolution through arbitration.
‘The Second Circuit noted that the NFL Constitution provides for ‘no independent arbitral forum, no bilateral dispute resolution, and no procedure,” the ruling stated. ‘Adding some procedure via the DRPG does not fix the forum’s lack of independence nor make the process bilateral.’
Last year’s ruling in Flores’ favor made a comparison of the DRPG to a coin flip. The Feb. 13 ruling added another comparison.
‘The Second Circuit provided an example of an alternative dispute resolution method: a coin flip,’ Caproni’s ruling stated. ‘This Court would add the always-exciting dispute resolution method known on playgrounds all over as ‘rock-paper-scissors.’ Both have procedures, but neither is arbitration. Nor is the process here, even with the addition of the DRPG.’
Caproni stated in the judgment that the league’s stance on arbitration speaks to a larger issue in the process toward resolving Flores’ grievances.
‘This case, even as it has progressed very little, illustrates the failures of the NFL to provide a process that constitutes ‘arbitration’ as that term is used by the FAA.’
Representatives for Flores, former Arizona Cardinals head coach Steve Wilks and former assistant coach Ray Horton agreed in a statement.
‘The court’s decision recognizes that an arbitration forum in which the defendant’s own chief executive gets to decide the case would strip employees of their rights under the law. It is long overdue for the NFL to recognize this and finally provide a fair, neutral and transparent forum for these issues to be addressed,’ Douglas H. Wigdor (Partner, Wigdor LLP) and David E. Gottlieb (Partner, Wigdor LLP) said in a statement to USA TODAY Sports.
A pre-trial conference is set for Friday, April 3.
The NFL has not responded to the ruling at time of publishing.