Secrecy Abounds in Washington Football Team Lawsuit

By Tom Raffin

Despite their disagreement on just about everything else, Dan Snyder and the Washington Football Team minority owners are in agreement on one thing: they do not want the public to know what is going on in their dispute over the partial sale of the team.

Minority Owners Robert Rothman, Dwight Schar, and Frederick Smith filed a motion to seal all details and documents relating to the suit that has stalled their attempt to sell their combined 40% stake in the controversy ridden franchise to an anonymous group for approximately 1.5 Billion dollars. The three minority owners are suing team owner and chairman of the board Daniel Snyder, who has sought to prevent the sale of the shares by exercising his right to first refusal. While the initial sealing was filed by the Plaintiffs, both Snyder and the NFL have supported the filing and have submitted findings of fact and law to justify the secrecy.

Having written extensively on the matters at the core of the controversies with the Washington Football Team, the Washington Post intervened to oppose the motion to entirely seal the documents relating to the case, stating in a December 14, 2020 filing with the court.

The Post does not anticipate that it would take a position on more than a small number of the dozens of documents at issue, but believes that the public must at least be given an opportunity to challenge the arguments made before the revised motion is adjudicated. (Gamse, 2020, p. 3)

The Washington Post had originally broken the story in a late August bombshell that detailed the alleged exploitation of the Washington Football Team’s cheerleaders and a work environment “in which women say they have been marginalized, discriminated against, and exploited.” (Washington Post, p. 14) That same article was deeply critical of Snyder and even detailed a story where one of the team cheerleaders “was more or less propositioned” (Washington Post, p. 49) by Snyder.

Citing the importance of following the procedure that determines whether or not documents included in filings should be sealed, Maryland District Court Judge Peter Messitte examined each filing and determined if it must be sealed or not, and what parts must be sealed if it is not fully unsealed. The decision to seal a document is based on what judicial documents fall under the constitutional presumption, and which fall under the common law of presumption of public right of access (Rothman v. Snyder, II).

The Courts found on a preliminary level that the filings of record fell under the less rigorous common law presumption of access. This common law presumption of access is tied to all judicial records and documents but can be overruled if countervailing interests significantly outweigh the public interests to accessing the documents. In total, the Plaintiffs, Defendants, and NFL proposed sealing the record for a variety of reasons that came down to three points laid out by Judge Messitte in a December 17th order “(1) confidential business information, including the confidential proposal to purchase Plaintiffs’ shares in [the Washington Football Team]; (2) information pertaining to confidential arbitration proceedings involving the same parties; and (3) private personal information. (Rothman v. Snyder, II. B)”

In laying out these three main points as a part of his December 17^th opinion and order, Judge Messitte stated that confidential business information would be revealed that could compromise the sale of the shares. Furthermore, some of the information in the court filings is confidential to a degree that the release of said information would provide the opportunity for an opponent to take advantage of that information essentially amounting to the release of trade secrets. As such, Judge Messitte deemed that information subject to narrow redactions. The NFL and the Defendant argued that since there is an ongoing arbitration involving the NFL, the sensitive information from those proceedings should also be sealed. Judge Messitte concurred with that position and allowed for a narrow redaction of information as it related to the ongoing arbitration proceedings and could also compromise the NFL and the related parties involved in the arbitration. Additionally, on a narrow basis, the proposed sealing of any personal information found in the records such as phone numbers and addresses was granted. Judge Messitte also found fit to seal in their entirety, documents that contain the private information of parties that are not included in the suit, as their relevance in the broader context of the case was not of significance to the degree that would merit a targeted redaction.

In total, the Judge Messitte ordered that 44 filings be unsealed in their entirety, while an additional 27 filings were subject to narrow redactions before also being placed on the public docket. In ruling to limit what is sealed to a very specific set of information the Court is ruling to uphold protections for the public to have access to the records as is their right. While this case is far from resolved, the determination of the degree to which Court filings will remain sealed allows for Suit to go forward and will allow for a greater level of public scrutiny as it relates to a case that will very much have the eye of the public as it moves towards a conclusion.

Tom Raffin is a first-year doctoral student at Florida State University in the Department of Sport Management.

Citations :

Lewd cheerleader videos, sexist rules: Ex-employees decry Washington’s NFL team workplace. (2020, November 20). Washingtonpost.com, NA. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A642373842/ITOF?u=tall85761&sid=ITOF&xid=00fd59cb

Rothman et al. v. Snyder, Civ. No. PJM-20-3290, Document 66 (2020, December 14)

Robert Rothman et al., Plaintiffs, v. Daniel Snyder, Defendant. Civil No. 20-3290 PJM. United States District Court, D. Maryland. December 17, 2020.