Tom Brady can still contest Deflategate suspension
With Monday’s ruling, the Deflategate case gets sent back to U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman’s New York with orders to confirm NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s four-game suspension of Tom Brady. But the New England Patriots quarterback and the NFLPA aren’t out of legal options just yet.
Brady and the players’ union could file for a re-hearing, known as an en banc petition. Such rehearings, which take place in front of all 15 judges who comprise the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, are rare.
But the fact the three-judge panel moved to reverse a district court judge’s ruling — instead of affirming it — does make the success of such a maneuver more likely. It also was a majority decision, not a unanimous one by the panel, as Judge Robert A. Katzmann wrote the dissenting opinion.
“Commissioner (Goodell) exceeded that limited authority when he decided instead that Brady could be suspended for four games based on misconduct found for the first time in the Commissioner’s decision,” Katzmann wrote. “This breach of the limits on the Commissioner’s authority is exacerbated by the unprecedented and virtually unexplained nature of the penalty imposed.”