According to ESPN’s Tisha Thompson, an NFL arbitrator has ruled that the Arizona Cardinals must pay former executive Terry McDonough $3 million for “false and defamatory” statements the team released to the public.
However, McDonough’s other original claims of unlawful retaliation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and invasion of privacy were dismissed.
McDonough’s claimed that he was retaliated against when the team allegedly had temporary “burner” phones to communicate with general manager Steve Keim in the summer of 2018 during his team-imposed suspension for a DUI arrest. McDonough said he expressed that he was not comfortable with doing it.
What is interesting is that the arbitrator found that the team did use burner phones, which might cause the league to dole out a punishment to the organization.
However, it was not found that the Cardinals prevented McDonough from getting a GM job elsewhere.
What led to the $3 million ruling were the statements the Cardinals released publicly about McDonough.
The ruling said the Cardinals “published the defamatory statements with actual malice.”
McDonough sought more than $100 million from the Cardinals for lost wages, emotional distress, reputational harm and punitive damages.
The ultimate award is broken down as $150,000 in general harm to his reputation, $600,000 for emotional distress and $2.25 million in punitive damages.
Now we get to wait and see if the league will punish the Cardinals for what they did.
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