MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — David Doty, the U.S. District Judge who directed numerous NFL labor matters in his Minneapolis courtroom and made a 1992 ruling that paved the way for modern free agency, has died. He was 96.
District of Minnesota officials announced that Doty died on Saturday, three days before his birthday. No cause was given.
“Judge Doty devoted his life to public service and the law, presiding over NFL-related litigation for many years during his distinguished career,” the league said in a statement issued after his death. “We express our sincere condolences to his family, friends and colleagues.”
Appointed by President Ronald Reagan to the federal bench in 1987, Doty gained senior status in 1998 and continued to handle cases until a few months before his death. After serving six years in the Marines, Doty earned his law degree in 1961 from the University of Minnesota before 26 years in private practice.
He presided over thousands of civil and criminal cases during his judicial career, including several landmark NFL management-union disputes with a down-to-earth and pleasant demeanor that could turn stern if he felt the lawyers arguing in front of him needed to be redirected.
“Judge Doty devoted his entire professional life to serving others — as a Marine, as a lawyer who served not only clients but his community in many ways, and as a U.S. District Judge for nearly four decades. Despite his remarkable accomplishments, he was a genuinely humble man,” Chief U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz said. “He treated everyone — from the guy who shined his shoes to Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court — the same way: with kindness and compassion and a sincere interest in their lives. I will particularly miss his sense of humor. He always had a smile on his face.”
After a 1987 player strike that interrupted the regular season, the NFL Players Association filed suit over the league’s restrictive rules around free agency, and Doty was assigned to the case.
Urging both parties to continue bargaining, Doty initially sided with the NFL by refusing to turn loose some 300 players from their teams onto the open market. In 1990, however, he granted them freedom to pursue individual antitrust cases against the league.
In 1992, the limited free agency system the owners had implemented in absence of a collective bargaining agreement — “Plan B” allowed teams to protect 37 players from signing elsewhere — was struck down by a jury of eight women.
After the trial that lasted more than three months with 16 hours of deliberation, Doty then ruled in favor of a handful of players who’d filed suit for unrestricted free agency. The following year, star defensive end Reggie White led a class-action lawsuit against the league that sparked fresh negotiations between the two sides.
The eventual settlement created the next collective bargaining agreement that included more permissive free agency and a salary cap system to pacify owners concerned about skyrocketing payroll costs. White, an eight-time All-Pro who landed in the Pro Football Hall of Fame after his death in 2004, left the Philadelphia Eagles to sign with the Green Bay Packers. He helped lead them to a Super Bowl title after his fourth season with the club.
That 1993 agreement that was trumped by the new CBA in 2011 is at the root of the league’s competitive parity and widespread popularity that continues to soar some 33 years later. Doty continued for decades to maintain jurisdiction over the labor disputes that weren’t resolved through the league’s own arbitration process — from money matters to player discipline.
Doty ruled in 2008 that then-jailed quarterback Michael Vick could keep more than $16 million in bonus money the Atlanta Falcons tried to recoup after he pleaded guilty to federal charges for running a dogfighting operation. He also sided with the NFLPA and running back Adrian Peterson in 2015 in his appeal of a suspension by the league following the child abuse case against him.
Doty didn’t always favor the union. He denied in 2012 a motion to reopen the White agreement in a collusion case against the league that was kept alive in appeals court. After Doty recused himself from that case in 2014, Doty’s colleague U.S. District Judge Michael Davis rejected anew the claim of a secret 2010 cap on player salaries.
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