3rd Circuit to Decide Whether Lawyer’s $184M Suit over Jets Taping Can Go Forward
A New York Jets fan who is also a lawyer will get a federal appeals hearing today on whether his $184 million suit against the New England Patriots can go forward.
The suit by Princeton, N.J., lawyer Carl Mayer contends the Patriots and their coach, Bill Belichick, deprived ticket holders of an “honest match” when a team employee secretly taped the Jets’ defensive signals in 2007, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. The Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments this afternoon.
A federal judge had dismissed the suit. The defendants claim the would-be class action is frivolous.
Mayer is seeking a refund of three times the ticket price for all the games played between the Patriots and the Jets in Giants stadium from 2000, when Belichick became head coach, through 2007, according to the Inquirer and the New York Post. He told the Inquirer that the Patriots may have been taping opposing teams the entire time.
The suit names the National Football League as well as the Jets because, Mayer contends, the League’s decision to destroy the videos was tantamount to destroying evidence.
He is suing with the help of a colleague, lawyer Bruce Afran, who once ran for the U.S. Senate as a member of the Green Party. Mayer describes himself as a lawyer for the people on his website and says his practice is dedicated to “ending the tyranny of corporate power over American citizens.”