Former NFL Players’ Class Claims Thrown for Loss

An effort to revive federal racketeering class claims against all 32 National Football League clubs went nowhere Feb. 21, when the Northern District of California ruled it was too late to add new plaintiffs to the case (Evans v. Ariz. Cardinals Football Club, 2017 BL 52891, N.D. Cal., No. 16-cv-01030, 2/21/17).

The move by lawyers for 13 former NFL players, who allege the clubs violated federal drug laws in dispensing medications to injured players to keep them in games, “hints at a strategy by plaintiffs’ counsel to shuffle their client deck and produce new plaintiffs to ...