Referee Lawsuits vs USA Rugby Have Been Dismissed
Referee Lawsuits vs USA Rugby Have Been Dismissed
Two lawsuits vs USA Rugby have been dismissed, according to court records.
Earlier this year National Collegiate Rugby attempted to merge two additional lawsuits into their suits against USA Rugby.
Those other two lawsuits were from Justin Hale and Christopher Micheletti, both referees who were suing USA Rugby because of the types of games they were assigned after refereeing at NCR events.
Earlier this summer the petition to merge the lawsuits into one were dismissed.
That was seen by some as a precursor to specific decisions on all three lawsuits And while the larger NCR lawsuit is still ongoing, the suits by Hale and Micheletti, both which were before Judge Robert Pittman in Texas Western District Court, have, as of August 4, been dismissed.
For both plaintiffs, the suits pertaining to Texas state law are dismissed with prejudice, with means they cannot refile in Texas because the dismissal was decided on the merits and facts of the case, rather than a procedural matter or other reason.
At the federal level the cases were dismissed without prejudice—this appears to be fairly standard and allows the suit to be brought in another state or at the federal level if the plaintiffs so wish.
Judge Pittman is also the judge working on the NCR lawsuit (officially National Collegiate Rugby Inc. v. McGregor et al.). Nothing has been filed on this case since late July.
