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Litigation Lessons From Deflategate: "Standing" To Bring A Lawsuit

A recent lawsuit in the news got me thinking about something very basic in litigation called "standing". Standing means you, as the plaintiff, have a personal stake in a dispute, or in the outcome of a lawsuit, or you were the actual person or party injured by the acts of the defendants.

Standing is a "threshold question" in a lawsuit. At a minimum you need standing, or your case will be thrown out. 

The "lawsuit in the news" was the idiotic lawsuit brought by seven New England Patriots fans against the NFL, Commissioner Roger Goodell, and even Robert Kraft (the Patriots owner!) over Goodell's punishment of Tom Brady and the Patriots for Deflategate. The lawsuit alleges claims for unfair competition under Massachusetts law, fraud, breach of contract, a civil RICO claim (originally meant for organized crime!), and some other things.

The Patriot fans then made a motion for something called a Temporary Restraining Order and a Preliminary Injunction to allow the Patriots to be able to draft a first-round pick in the (now over) NFL draft.

The Massachusetts federal judge hearing the case denied the motion. One thing the judge said was, umm, guys, you don't have standing:
Among other deficiencies, plaintiffs are not likely to succeed in establishing that they have standing to assert the claims in the complaint; that they were parties to any relevant contract, express or implied; that the defendants owed them any relevant duty of care; or that there is any legally cognizable injury for which the law will provide relief.
That the plaintiffs had no standing was my first thought when I heard about the case. It is pretty obvious.

A check of the docket sheet in the case shows that that the NFL, Roger Goodell, and Robert Kraft have all moved to dismiss the case based on (among other things) lack of standing. The case will be thrown out, and, frankly, I would be worried about sanctions for even bringing a case like this. 

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