Reid’s grievance will take time and won’t necessarily end if an NFL team signs him
Reid’s grievance will probably extend well into the 2018 regular season. (Keep in mind, Kaepernick’s grievance was filed last October, and six months later, it remains unresolved.) It will be up to arbitrator (and University of Pennsylvania law professor) Stephen Burbank to determine if Kaepernick has shown a clear preponderance of evidence. Reid’s grievance will follow the same track.
Like Kaepernick’s grievance, Reid’s grievance doesn’t necessarily have to end with arbitration. Should either player lose his grievance, he can file a federal lawsuit against the NFL (and any colluding teams) in a U.S. District Court. In doing so, the player would petition a federal judge to vacate the arbitration award. A federal lawsuit would face steep odds: judges are obligated under federal law to review arbitration awards with a high degree of deference. This is a dynamic that both Tom Brady and Adrian Peterson learned when they ultimately failed to convince federal courts to vacate arbitration awards.
Should an NFL team sign Reid, his collusion grievance could continue. As mentioned above, collusion doesn’t necessitate a league-wide conspiracy. It only takes two or more teams, or the league and one team, colluding. It would be plausible for two teams to conspire against Reid and then a third team signed him.
Proving collusion would potentially net Reid a sizable amount of money. Under the CBA, Reid would first be entitled to compensatory damages for the amount of money he lost due to collusion. Such damages are difficult to project in the abstract, particularly since an NFL team could still sign Reid before the start of the 2018 regular season. Should Reid be signed to a reasonable contract for 2018, his compensatory damages would likely prove modest. This is because even if victimized by collusion, Reid would receive from the NFL team that signs him an amount of money consistent with his market value. In contrast, should Reid remain unemployed well into the 2018 season, compensatory damages would weigh the contracts of safeties comparable to Reid in terms of age and talent. This could lead to a potentially large compensatory damages award.
Per the CBA, Reid would also be awarded “punitive damages”—damages designed to punish the NFL and offending teams—of twice the value of his compensatory damages. In other words, if Reid wins his collusion case, he would receive three times the compensatory damages.
Reid and the NFL could also reach a settlement in their grievance proceeding before an arbitrator’s decision.
We’ll keep you posted.
Michael McCann is SI's legal analyst. He is also the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of New Hampshire School of Law and co-author with Ed O'Bannon of the new book Court Justice: The Inside Story of My Battle Against the NCAA.
