Domestic Violence, the NFL, and What the Law Can Do For You

By Sandra Widlan

A lot has been said about the NFL’s response to Ray Rice’s knockout punch to his then fiancée in a casino elevator.  However, little has been said about the civil remedies available to women who have been physically abused or sexually assaulted by athletes. The criminal justice system sometimes fails abuse victims.  As Michael Powell reported in the New York Times article “What Were They Thinking?  Ugly Video, Blind Justice”:

In February, after Rice knocked Janay Palmer senseless in a casino elevator, Atlantic County prosecutors obtained two tapes. They watched as Rice delivered his knockout blow, and they watched as, with chilling nonchalance, he lugged his fiancée’s unconscious body five-sixths of the way out of the elevator. Then he picked up her shoes.

Not long after, a grand jury handed up a felony indictment.

Then the prosecutors did the legal equivalent of nothing. They allowed Rice to enroll in pretrial intervention, in which he agreed to counseling and admitted nothing. It was the puncher’s equivalent of a traffic ticket.

A civil lawsuit can be an alternative remedy to criminal prosecution.

In a civil lawsuit, the victim (called the “plaintiff”) seeks to recover monetary damages from the perpetrator as compensation for pain and suffering and emotional distress.  By contrast, a criminal prosecution seeks punishment of the perpetrator through confinement, community service, and/or fines.  In some ways, it is easier to win a civil lawsuit:  unlike a criminal prosecution which requires that the crime be proven “beyond a reasonable doubt,” a civil lawsuit only requires that the plaintiff prove the offense occurred on a “more probable than not basis.”

Victims of abuse don’t have to rely only on the NFL or prosecutors to find justice.