Football Jurors Huddle On, and One Causes Stir

Another day in the deliberations in the United States Football League’s $1.69-billion antitrust suit against the National Football League passed without verdict Saturday, but not exactly without incident.

In fact, seemingly contesting notes from the jurors gave a nice little buzz to courtroom 318 in Manhattan’s U.S. District Court. Not that anybody knew what to make of it, but it would appear that at least two jurors are squaring off, one pumping the USFL cause, the other defending the NFL.

First came a note from Miriam Sanchez, a juror who was played to by USFL counsel Harvey Myerson during the closing arguments. Sanchez, who had been appreciated by Myerson for her note-taking during the trial and who was singled out more than once during the summation, broke with court tradition when she personally requested additional testimonies of NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle as they related to the importance of TV contracts to football.

It is believed that Sanchez, a school teacher from Yonkers, N.Y., was also behind Friday’s carefully worded request for evidence that centered on the relative credibility of Rozelle and USFL team owner Donald Trump. However, that request was signed by jury foreman Patricia McCabe.

Saturday’s initial request was signed by Sanchez, a fact that seemed to flabbergast NFL counsel. “Never saw that before,” co-counsel Frank Rothman said.

As there was little else to do in the courtroom, both sides set to speculate on what it all meant. Myerson said: “My own sense of it is that we have five strongly plus USFL and one not strong. I still think this will be over early next week. Still, you can’t read a lot into these things. You’ll go crazy.”

However, an NFL counsel said it looked as if one juror, say Sanchez, had split off from the others and was trying to represent her own, or the USFL’s view, to the others. So it would be 5-1, the NFL? “That’s one way to infer it,” said the attorney.

But then, less than an hour after the Sanchez request, Judge Peter Leisure came back to court with another request, this one signed by McCabe. It asked for Rozelle’s testimony concerning expanded roster size, which the USFL claims is a monopolistic act, and for Jack Donlan’s testimony on the supplemental draft, also viewed as anti-competitive by the USFL.

And the jury also wanted to read the testimony of both Rozelle and CBS-TV executive Neil Pilson on the Bob Wussler incident, which refers to Wussler’s attendance at a World Football League meeting in 1975. The USFL says that Wussler got in trouble with his boss over his attendance at an NFL rival’s meeting after Rozelle called CBS President Bob Wood to express his “surprise.”

There was some speculation that these testimonies represented the NFL’s views better than the USFL’s. In addition, there were requests for three other pieces of evidence that might seem to bolster the NFL side. However, the sheer variety of testimony requested was daunting. “They’re all over the place,” NFL co-counsel Bob Fiske said. “This is going to take a long time.”

It will take at least until Monday, when the six jurors resume the deliberations that have now gone on for a total of 15 hours, including six Saturday. It is possible that Judge Leisure will institute night hours for the jurors if a verdict isn’t reached soon.