Folks often complain that the justice system moves slowly. On Thursday, the speed of one Minnesota federal court properly should conjure visions of geese and grease.
A reader forwarded to us the Associated Press item from WCCO regarding the NFL’s efforts to take the StarCaps case back to federal court. The blurb bore a time stamp of 1:41 p.m. CT, less than two hours before this posting.
So I wrote up our own item on the unexpected development, after sending out requests for more info to the NFL and attorney Peter Ginsberg, who represents Vikings defensive tackles Pat and Kevin Williams.
Per Ginsberg, Judge Paul Magnuson already has denied the NFL’s request.
The ruling issued Thursday, a day after the request was filed, states that the NFL’s effort to return to federal court “seems calculated only to avoid trial on the merits, and in this Court’s opinion, borders on abuse of process.”
Wow.
It’s rare that the NFL loses in Court. (But not as rare as it used to be.) It’s virtually unprecedented for the NFL to take a public knuckle-smacking.
And now the NFL has to stand trial before a state-court judge who might have reason to be a little bit miffed, to say the least, about the league’s eleventh-hour shenanigans.
Advantage, Williamses.
Advantage, 2010 Vikings.