Brian Flores Race Claims Against NFL’s Dolphins Return to Court

In a significant ruling that advances Brian Flores’ lawsuit against the NFL for race discrimination and retaliation and restrains the power of the league to compel arbitration, U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni on Friday ruled that all of Flores’ claims will proceed in court and not be dispatched to an arbitration process overseen by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.

Caproni’s ruling also applies to claims brought by fellow coaches Steve Wilks and Ray Horton. The ruling makes it more likely that evidence and testimony by league officials and team owners on the race of coaching and general manager candidates eventually become public.

For a case that’s been on the docket for four years, Flores v. NFL remains in an early stage. To that point, Caproni wrote, “this is an aging employment discrimination case that has been idling at the starting block for four years.”

Flores, who serves as defensive coordinator of the Minnesota Vikings, accuses the NFL, the Miami Dolphins—whose owner, Stephen Ross, fired Flores as head coach in 2022—and three teams that allegedly gave him sham interviews (the New York Giants, the Denver Broncos and the Houston Texans) of violating Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and several state laws regarding intentional discrimination. 

Flores wants the case to be certified as a class action on behalf of all Black head coaches, offensive and defensive coordinators, and QB coaches, as well as general managers, and Black candidates for those positions who would fall within the applicable statute of limitations.

In 2023, Caproni ruled that Flores’ claims against the Dolphins (and accompanying claims against the NFL as well as claims brought by Wilks and Horton against their former employers, the Arizona Cardinals and Tennessee Titans, respectively) must be submitted to a mandatory arbitration process overseen by Goodell or a designee.

The coaches’ employment contracts contained language that incorporates the league constitution and contemplates arbitration for disputes involving coaches and their teams. The basic logic was that these coaches knowingly signed contracts, with the advice of agents and lawyers, and they accepted the terms.

At the same time, she retained jurisdiction over Flores’ claims against the other teams, which did not hire Flores and thus did not sign him to an employment contract.

Last year the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed Caproni’s ruling to advance claims against the Giants, Broncos and Texans. The Second Circuit held that the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), which governs arbitration in the U.S., necessitates an “independent” process that is “separate from the parties to the dispute.”

Given that Goodell oversees the league and is hired by teams’ owners, he is not independent, which the Second Circuit found especially problematic since Flores claims Goodell engaged in wrongdoing.

With the Second Circuit’s ruling, Flores petitioned Caproni to reconsider her decision to toss his claims against the Dolphins. He argued the Second Circuit’s ruling “necessarily affects the correctness” of her decision to compel arbitration.

In her order Friday, Caproni agreed with Flores.

The judge stressed the Second Circuit’s holding that “the NFL failed to provide a neutral forum that could even be called an ‘arbitration’ and that Flores could not effectively vindicate his statutory rights in the forum that the NFL provided, given the designation of the NFL Commissioner as the default arbitrator.” 

She added that even as Flores’ case “has progressed very little” over four years, it “illustrates the failures of the NFL to provide a process that constitutes ‘arbitration’ as that term is used by the FAA.”

Caproni’s order repeatedly emphasized that arbitration must allow its participants to vindicate their rights, and that Goodell or a designee of his choosing serving as the arbitrator is inconsistent with that requirement. She added that no matter how much the NFL defends its system of arbitration, it’s not sufficient to address Flores’ claims of race discrimination against the NFL.

“Paraphrasing Abraham Lincoln,” Caproni wrote, “even if you call a tail a leg, a dog has only four legs because calling a tail a leg does not make it a leg.”

In a statement, Flores’ attorneys Douglas H. Wigdor and David E. Gottlieb of Wigdor LLP said Caproni’s decision “recognizes that an arbitration forum in which the defendant’s own chief executive gets to decide the case would strip employees of their rights under the law.”

The NFL can appeal Caproni’s order to the Second Circuit, though that circuit previously issued a hostile opinion to the league in this case.

Caproni observed that the NFL and defendant teams “hang their hats on their hope that the Supreme Court will grant their current Petition for Certiorari and then decide the appeal favorably to them.” 

It remains to be seen if the Supreme Court, which only agrees to review about 1% of petitions, would find a case about a pro sports league’s system of arbitration worthy of review compared to cases that have more general application. Other leagues, including the NBA, empower their commissioner to review disputes in arbitration or grievance proceedings, but sports leagues with teams are unique in ways that might dissuade the Supreme Court from taking the case.

Whether Flores can prove discrimination and whether his case is certified as a class action remain to be seen and could take years to play out. 

Caproni emphasized the case is still at the “starting block.” But Flores’ attempt will remain in court, and thus electronic evidence and testimony offered by league officials and team owners regarding a sensitive topic like the race of coaching and GM candidates could become accessible to the public and media. The public-facing nature of the case could provide an incentive to the NFL to try to settle the litigation out of court.