The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals still has not issued a ruling on whether its stay of the ruling lifting the NFL Lockout will remain in place pending the hearing scheduled for June 3. There is, however, plenty of legal wrangling going on in the ongoing labor dispute between NFL owners and players.
The league Monday filed its first brief with the court in advance of that hearing.
NFL.com’s Albert Breer summarized the league’s position:
The arguments in Monday’s filing were an expanded version of what the league has claimed all along: that the NFL Players Association’s move to decertify after the initial bargaining talks broke down March 11 is a sham; that Nelson doesn’t have the jurisdiction to lift the lockout; and that she should have waited for a decision from the National Labor Relations Board on the union’s status before issuing that ruling.
The league also said that lifting the lockout without a labor deal in place would cause chaos, with teams trying to make decisions on signing free agents and making trades under a set of rules that could drastically change under a new agreement.
If the league is forced to lift the lockout, the rules under which teams would operate have yet to be determined.