On the Record

It’s a classic, timeless story: football star falls in love with beauty queen, mails an engagement ring, lives happily ever after.

Unfortunately for Roy Williams, it went all wrong after Step 2. Williams filed a lawsuit in Texas to recover the $76,000 engagement ring he mailed earlier this year to his ex-girlfriend, Brooke Daniels, Miss Texas USA in 2009.

According to his affidavit, Williams, a Dallas Cowboys wide receiver, sent Daniels an overnight package around Valentine’s Day with “$5,000 for school and dental bills and a baseball for her brother.”

“As a surprise,” Williams stated, “I also recorded a marriage proposal and included it and an engagement ring (having an approximate value of $76,600) in the package.”

(Are you taking notes, would-be grooms?)

Daniels declined the proposal and refused to return the ring to Williams despite his repeated asking, according to the affidavit. By early April, Daniels said she lost the ring, according to the affidavit.

Williams’ insurer did an investigation and determined Daniels’ father, Michael, had the ring.

Michael Daniels told the Odessa American, Williams’ hometown paper, he would return the ring to Williams to avoid the lawsuit. Daniels also offered this gem about Williams:

He said (to Brooke Daniels), ‘I’m not like a lot of people, I don’t want the ring back. You’ll eventually come back to me,’ and she didn’t.

Luckily for Williams, Michael Daniels is a man of his word. Williams received his ring Thursday, thereby settling his lawsuit.

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In researching the NFL’s pension plan for today’s Maryland Lawyer cover story, one thing made no sense: If the Retirement Board consists of representatives from the league and the players’ union, why wouldn’t the union people always side with the players against management?

The theory Cy Smith subscribes to is that the NFLPA’s demographics make it different from other unions. The NFLPA represents only active players, who are typically in their 20s and 30s.

“The NFLPA focuses on interests of current players because they are the bargaining units and they don’t think long-term the way most people in their 20s don’t think long-term,” he says. “If you’re a current player, your focus is going to be on salary.”

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Still wish you were on vacation? Most of your co-workers out for week? Here’s some “work” you can do to pass the time:

• The strange (and sad) story of Ravens rookie Sergio Kindle takes another wrong turn.
• Morris L. Cohen, one of the nation’s leading law librarians, dies at 83. (HT: Above the Law)
• The title says it all: “Male nurse who was a former stripper failed to make out claims that he was subjected to a sexually hostile work environment.”
• OK, “Matlock” fans, stand up for your show’s egregiously-low ranking. (HT: Volokh Conspiracy)
• It’s still better than a lump of coal, right?

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Supreme Court rulings, the National Football League, consumer class-action suits, an attorney disbarred and cold pizza — last week’s most-read stories written by The Daily Record’s legal team cover many of the touchstones of the modern-day news diet.

1. Pizza Boli wants D.C. franchisee to go
A federal judge in Baltimore is likely to order a former longtime Pizza Boli’s franchise in Washington D.C., to significantly change the way it does business and may even shut it down for a time.

2. Supreme Court rejects McCrary case, others
The Supreme Court turned aside a host of petitioners Monday, including some of the defendants in retired Baltimore Raven Michael McCrary’s long-running insurance fraud case.

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Ravens fans who enjoy reading the tea leaves from off-season workouts lost their last chance to do so.

The NFL has canceled the final of the Ravens’ scheduled off-season workouts for rules violations. Special teams players were supposed to work out June 15-16.

But the league and NFL Players Association determined the Ravens violated rules “concerning the intensity and tempo of drills conducted” and the “length of time spent by players at the club’s facility” during the workouts.

The punishment was based on an unknown source’s complaint to the NFL Players’ Association, a fact that is both interesting and potentially worrying. (Off-season turmoil? Team unity threatened by a rogue individual? We know where this can lead.) Read the rest of this entry »

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Cy Smith is not planning to watch much – if any – of the NFL Draft, which I believe will end sometime in May. But there is a chance some of these rookies could become Smith’s clients when their playing days are over.

Smith has represented numerous retired players seeking additional compensation from the NFL’s pension system, which he and others believe pays less than it should for disabilities caused by on-field injuries. Smith most famously represented the family of Hall of Fame Steelers’ center Mike Webster, which received a $1.5 million verdict in 2005. Last year, Smith settled a case on behalf of two former players, and he has several more cases at their earliest stages.

Perhaps the greatest danger facing players is head and brain injuries. Smith said research has shown that anyone who plays major college football and then pro football is at “serious” risk for repetitive concussion syndrome; oftentimes it’s not the biggest hit that causes the most damage but the accumulation of blows to the head. (For more on concussions, read Malcolm Gladwell’s story from the New Yorker.)

“It’s not a system of chance,” Smith said. “It’s predictable based on the way the game is played.”

The NFL last year recognized for the first time the long-term effects of concussions. The league has also taken steps to curb head injuries, including coming down harder on a player whose tackle or hit involves contact with another player’s head.

Smith said the NFL should be commended for taking steps to protect the players but that it might not be enough simply because of the nature of football.

“A lot may be inherent,” Smith said. “If that’s true, and we’re willing to have the game played in the way it has historically been played, we have to make sure the players are fairly compensated if they are injured.”

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After spending a long weekend in New Orleans, I discovered firsthand the locals really love their food, their drink and, much to my delight, their seersucker (pre-Memorial Day, natch). But that town really, really loves its football team, the New Orleans Saints.

I know there are rabid football fan bases all across the country, including right here in Baltimore. But the connection feels deeper in New Orleans.  A lot of it is because the team is forever intertwined with Hurricane Katrina, and some of it has to do with the team winning the Super Bowl in February. But I got the feeling that even if the fleur-de-lis was not named the state symbol two years ago, the Saints logo might still have been emblazoned on the side of every city trash can.

I bring this up to point out a class-action lawsuit set to be heard this week in U.S. District Court in New Orleans. More than 2,100 plaintiffs are suing a Chinese drywall manufacturer for product defects causing both structural damage and health problems. The lead plaintiff? Sean Payton, the Saints’ head coach.

Sports Illustrated’s Peter King noted the hearing yesterday in his Monday Morning Quarterback Column. “Heck of a choice for lead plaintiff,” King wrote under a “Home-Court Advantage Dept.” heading. “Sounds like kicking off in a football game with a 21-0 lead.”

To that, I would add: good luck, defense, finding impartial jurors. And I wish I had thought of a way to convince my editors I needed to cover the proceedings.

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The Maryland legal community’s best-known Redskins fan is not pleased with the addition of Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb to the roster of his favorite team. To put it mildly.

“It’s horrible,” Attorney General Doug Gansler told me this morning at the end of an interview. “Donovan McNabb has never been a good quarterback.”

“I can’t believe you’re going on the record saying that,” said his spokeswoman, who was also in the room.

“It’s very sad,” said Gansler, who in-season has a gig providing pregame commentary on Redskins games for “Redskins Kickoff.” “It’s what they always do. The Redskins will go out and try and find someone that everyone’s heard of and stick him on the team, and it’s never worked.

“Jason Campbell, if they gave him any kind of linemen, he would have been great. And then what’s going to happen is, he’s going to go to another team and be an all-pro for six years and Donovan McNabb will be watching that from his old-age home.”

“Don’t go to Philly anytime soon,” the spokeswoman warned.

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The U.S. Supreme Court tomorrow will hear arguments in American Needle v. NFL, a case ostensibly about who gets to make officially-licensed team hats.

But the underlying issue — whether the NFL and other sports leagues should be considered one business or multiple, privately-owned ones — could have a dramatic effect on professional sports. Only Major League Baseball now has an antitrust exemption.

Sports business and law observers have been weighing in on the case, but the commentary I found most surprising and compelling was by Drew Brees in Sunday’s Washington Post.

Surprising because Brees is the All-Pro quarterback for the New Orleans Saints, and he has a playoff game this weekend. (Granted, Brees was off last week, but most sports fans like to believe the players on our team are concentrating only on the next game; imagine Joe Flacco writing an op-ed about the health care debate as he prepared to play the Patriots.)

Brees, a member of the NFL Players’ Association Executive Committee, argues granting the NFL an antitrust exemption “would enable owners to exert total control over this multibillion-dollar business.” Such a ruling would be particularly onerous for the NFLPA as it negotiates a new collective bargaining agreement, he writes; there is already widespread discussion about a lockout for the 2011 season.

Like any good brief, Brees ends with a zinger, this one directed at two of the most high-profile owners in the league:

I hope that the justices of the Supreme Court recognize and ensure the continuance of the intense competition inherent in this game, and in the business behind the game. As readers of The Washington Post know well, NFL teams such as the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins are by no means a single entity — just ask Dan Snyder or Jerry Jones.

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Good afternoon. Here are some Web nuggets to nosh on to help fight that case of the Mondays:

Bryan Sears with the Patuxent newspapers reports on a pair of Baltimore County lawyers who might exert some influence on next year’s County Council races.

The issues surrounding concussions and football players are not just in the sports headlines anymore – they’re appearing on law school finals.

If you’re looking for gag gift this holiday season, might I suggest this?

A writer to “Annie’s Mailbox” seeks help getting a 47-year-old lawyer friend to move out of her parents’ home. (HT: Above the Law.)

C-SPAN’s “America and the Courts” series focuses on the role of the U.S. Solicitor General in its most recent installment. Opening remarks given by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy. (HT: How Appealing.)

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