Bernie Parrish: Delay, Dismiss, Deny
Here’s the headline from USA Today:
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Roger Goodell: NFL, armed forces sharing head injury information for almost two years
“When I went to Afghanistan, I went with Admiral (Michael) Mullen (chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff). We stopped in Ireland and got a beer in Shannon (an Irish airport), and he said one of the issues they were having was MBTI, the Mild Brain Trauma Injury. When a soldier has a brain injury, when is it safe to put him back on the battlefield? I said, ‘We have a lot of experience with this, admiral. We’d be happy to exchange information with you.’ “
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Read the rest of the post on USA Today Football Huddle – click HERE.
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Roger Goodell, Chairman of the “Abuse of Discretion Committee” that they call The Retirement Board gets caught red-handed, so now we have people thanking him for putting a minuscule part of his loot back on the counter? Goodell “had a beer” with Admiral Mullen (chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) when? Two years ago? My understanding is the military has been treating their brain injury casualties as badly as the NFL treats ours; military suicides are at an all-time high with brain injury casualties leading the statistics. In fact, our military veterans have been using the same slogan Delay, Deny and Hope We Die for decades.
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The NFL’s former attorney in the American Needle case now before the Supreme Court – Eric Holder – is now the Attorney General and has set up a task force going after medical FRAUD. It’s now up to all of us to see that their fraud investigation and prosecution will include the NFL’s disability plan that has dumped hundreds of millions of dollars on to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. The responsibility for injured NFL employees should have been paid for by the owners/employers but they dodged it by using their Covington & Burling’s tobacco industry-modeled phony experts like Elliot Pellman and Dr Ira Casson “Dr. No.” Goodell’s “new” concussion policy is part of the NFL’s cynical slow-walk-delay defense, called out so loudly by Rep. Linda Sanchez and Rep. Maxine Waters at the recent Congressional hearings where Goodell looked like Bambi in the headlights.
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To paraphrase our slogan: Delay (slow walk it), Dismiss (Dr. No), and Deny (Tom Condon, Bill Bidwill, Dave Duerson, Jeff Van Note – Retirement Board).
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Dave Pear
November 23rd, 2009 at 2:42 pm #
The NFL is only doing as little as they’re being forced to do, especially after the Washington DC hearings on 10/28/09. The league has a huge liability issue which is not going to go away. The only way for real change to occur is:
1) Bad publicity
2) Congress
3) Court of Law
In Washington DC (three week ago) Maxine Waters said, “it is time to remove the anti trust exemption”. The current disability system is illegal and is a further breach of fiduciary responsibility by the NFL. The NFLPA Leadership has already been convicted in federal court of “breaching their fiduciary duty” towards retired players and ordered to pay $28,100,000 a years ago and we have not yet received a penny! Surely they’re also guilty of doing the same dirty deed on disability! If the NFL won’t play by the rules, why should they receive the anti trust exemption? The real solution is pension/disability reform and medical after football for retired players. The pensions should at least match major league baseball (MLB) and the disability should be unique to our industry and must also be administered legitimately. Currently, the new programs from Roger Goodell for retired players are gibberish and were intended to mislead Congress. However, by the response last month in Washington DC their scheme has failed! Football is a violent game and there’s plenty the League can do to protect the players and this move is only a small start.
The NFLPA Leadership must fire the Groom Law Group because they designed the current disability debacle. Retired players need a livable pension not a car payment and medical after football. The doctors must be qualified and NOT NFL employees.
Dave & Heidi Pear
Bob Grant
November 24th, 2009 at 12:03 am #
A few short months ago, after fighting for Active and Retired Player rights for almost fifty years, Bernie Parrish sounded the alarm that led to the recent settlement of $26,000,000.00 for Retired Players who had been robbed on monies that were due them from the Upshaw NFLPA and Electronic Arts after they committed the worse kind of fraud. The amount should have exceeded $100,000,000.00 if the attorneys that Parrish hired had filed all of the proper paperwork on time and done more to protect their own Client from what turned out to be one of the slickest moves that I’ve ever seen in allowing the Court to remove him as Lead of the Class. Perhaps they had hidden reasons for doing so but the accusations that were made against Bernie were preposterous. The implication that he was making racist statements and inflammatory statements were unfair and unwarranted if you know the man and his history of fighting for Players of all colors. Prejudice and bigotry are not a part of Bernie’s character. Heck, how many of the men were Black that he was in Court fighting for? The last time that I looked both Herb Adderley and Walter Roberts had suntans.
Many of you think that Herb, a man that I think a lot of and consider a friend, was the Client in this suit but he never was. If you will check the record, you’ll see that Bernard P. Parish was the client from beginning until the end. Bernie spent more than two years on his own interviewing Law Firms to represent the Players in the action with no support while spending his own “buck” putting the Case together.
How quickly many of us forget that the NFLPA-EA Madden Game con game would still be going on without a single player having received a nickel had Parrish not done what he did for every man in the Class including the more than 1,000 men who signed GLA’s that mysteriously disappeared.
As a member of Bernie’s team, I can assure you that the plan was to “GO AFTER THE NFLPA FIRST AND THEN Electronic Arts/Madden Games NEXT.” It stands to reason that if one was guilty, so was the other.
First, the Attorneys on both sides reached a settlement that was far, far less than a “true forensic valuation, of the worth of the NFLPA and then they really tried to pull a fast one. They buried a clause into the settlement agreement stating that the Players forever agreed to never, never, ever sue the NFLPA or its Business Partner again, regardless if there was more that both were guilty of.
I don’t think that Herb was ever even given an opportunity to read the settlement and agreement or he never would have agreed to surrender the future rights of Retired Players to seek satisfaction through the Courts. The Judge threw that clause out because it made no sense at all and the Members of the class did not know that it had been slipped in. I’ll have to give it to Mr. Katz, Mr. Kessler and company though; it was a very slick move that would have sold us all down the river.
Then it gets even crazier: At this point the Court, the NFLPA, and the Attorneys for the Players are saying that the Client, Bernard Parrish, surrendered ALL of his rights to future action on behalf of Retired Players against the NFLPA and Partners. You heard me right! He didn’t do it but they’re saying that he did without his signature on a single document showing that he did. They figure that most of you will be so happy to get a few thousand dollars until you will not back him up. They figure that most of you will not contribute a penny to a war chest that will make it possibly for us to go after Electronic Arts for the money that they wrongfully took from you. We don’t even have to prove that they’re guilty because that was proven in a Federal Court of the United States Of America when Bernie sued and won in the San Francisco trial. If we don’t go after them, we’ve only gotten Jesse James but we let Frank James and the rest of the gang get away.
I know that it’s Christmas, fellas, and I know that money is tight but there would be no money without Bernie and his work. I believe that the Lawyers will take their money and run or they will try to put together a group on their own to go after EA. All of the Attorneys on both sides, have suddenly become good buddies and “homeboys” and you’re walking around with peanuts thinking that you got all that’s due you.
If you’re willing to kick in to the “War Chest,” we can finish this job, men. Don’t let them buy you off for crumbs fellas. I SEE NO REASON THAT FUTURE AWARDS CANNOT BE DIVIDED AMONG ALL PLAYERS
We have other very important matters to get on to but neither the NFL or the NFLPA will respect us if we don’t see this first bit of business through.
People said that Rome was to big to be whipped, as many did when England went up against the Colonial Patriots in this country, as was said about Germany in WW II, The Soviet Union in Afghanistan, and as they did about our own Country when we went up against that little man over in Vietnam. No one is too big to be defeated, men. It just takes time and resolve.
We are fighting as hard as we can for you but you’re going to have to help a little. Bernie stood up for you. Let’s see if we can keep him going.
Bob Grant