The jury spoke. And the judge ignored it. In every way possible.
Nearly three weeks after throwing out a $4.7 billion verdict based on expert testimony he entered AFTER he admitted it, Judge Philip Gutierrez has now entered a final ruling granting the 2.4 million residential and nearly 50,000 commercial customers no injunction against the antitrust violation found by the jury.
Via AJ Perez of FrontOfficeSports.com, Gutierrez made the final judgment on Tuesday without requiring the NFL to stop the actions the jury found improper.
Gutierrez ignored the plaintiffs’ objections and accepted the arrangement proposed by the NFL. deleted the word “proposed” and entered the judgment.
That leaves the plaintiffs with a statute of limitations (SOL, legal term), forcing others to sue—and they must hope that the judge hearing the case will allow (and not reject, post-ruling) expert testimony aimed at setting an above-market ticket price in a parallel universe where the NFL isn’t violating antitrust laws by distributing the package in a way that discourages fans from buying and encourages them to settle for the games available on their local CBS and Fox affiliates.
The next step for the plaintiffs is to appeal to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit within 30 days, unless Gutierrez (who retires in October) files a motion for retrial, which would likely be unsuccessful. Then, in about 12 to 18 months, a three-judge panel will decide whether Gutierrez was right or not.
