Jim Trotter's lawyers describe NFL's legal position as "morally abhorrent"
The early stages of the Jim Trotter lawsuit against the NFL include the predictable exchange of broad, sweeping — and entirely contradictory — declarations that eventually will yield to the effort to determine the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Trotter, a former employee of the NFL's in-house media conglomerate, believes he was targeted for termination (in the form of non-renewal of his contract) because he agitated internally (and externally, at a pair of high-profile press conferences) regarding issues of racial diversity in the workplace. The NFL, on November 17, issued its predictably broad and sweeping denial of any responsibility. Because that's what companies sued for wrongful termination always do.
The first step is to claim, with a straight face, that the plaintiff has failed to state a suitable legal claim. That even if everything alleged is true and correct, the law can't do anything about it.
In a three-page response to the NFL's letter outlining its planned preliminary defense and seeking a stay of any efforts to develop facts through the discovery process until the motion to dismiss is resolved, Trotter's lawyers attack the fundamental flaws in the NFL's knee-jerk "deny everything" strategy.
"Defendants ignore the allegations of the Complaint and are flat-out wrong on the law," attorney David Gottlieb writes. "Moreover, Defendants' position is morally abhorrent — the NFL literally takes the position that it is permitted to terminate an employee for raising complaints about an employer's lack of inclusion."
There's a brilliant simplicity in Trotter's lawyers tactics here. They're basically saying, "Hold on, you're claiming it's perfectly fine to fire someone for doing the things that Trotter did to advance diversity and inclusion in the workplace?"
Of course, the NFL's eventual position will be that it fired Trotter for budgetary reasons unrelated to his potentially protected activities. That position will be tested by documents and witness testimony and common sense.
For now, the frontline defense arises from a belief that they have every right to fire him for complaining about lack of diversity and inclusion. And Trotter's lawyers have opted to use strong language to describe that effort to avoid legal responsibility without having to subject the Commissioner and/or multiple owners to aggressive questioning under oath.
Even if a court of law agrees with the NFL on this, the court of public opinion has every right to realize that the NFL is claiming it has the absolute right to fire an employee for doing the things Trotter did, with no repercussion of any kind.
All that's missing is a vow to do it again.
If the NFL gets its way at this early stage of the case, the vow to do it again will be implied.
