U.S. women’s soccer case: Witness list

If the U.S. women’s team lawsuit proceeds to trial, it’ll take a while. The parties have just released their witness list, and it’s a nice 25 pages. (That means I spent $2.50 at PACER, so please buy one of my books as compensation. You can now read the details for free at RECAP.)

Here we go …

PLAINTIFFS

Plaintiffs reserve the right to call more. USSF is seeking to exclude Cook and Goldberg.

Asterisks are witnesses on both plaintiffs’ and USSF list. Time estimates are combined (in other words, when USSF says 1.25 hours, that should be total).

• *Alex Morgan (live – time expected: 1.25 hours plantiffs, 1.25 USSF) — but due to pregnancy, Christen Press may be called in her place. If Press is called, USSF expects only 0.75 hours.
• Megan Rapinoe (live – 1.25/1.25)
• Carli Lloyd (live – 1.25/1.25)
• Becky Sauerbrunn (live – 2.5/1.25)
• Finnie Cook, economics expert witness (live – 3/2)
• Caren Goldberg, human resources expert witness (live – 3/2)
• Roger Noll, economics expert witness called for rebuttal to USSF experts Carlyn Irwin and Justin McCrary (live – 2/1.5)
• “USSF through designees Jay Berhalter, Sunil Gulati and Tom King” (by deposition video — 5 hours plaintiffs, 3 hours USSF)
• *Sunil Gulati (live or deposition video – 3/4)
• Jay Berhalter (live or deposition video – 1/1.5)
• Carlos Cordeiro (live or deposition video – 2/1.5)
• *Tom King (USSF managing director of administration, live or deposition video – 3/4.5)
• Pinky Raina (USSF’s relatively new chief financial officer, live or deposition video – 1/2)
• Jill Ellis (live or deposition video – 1/1.5)
• *Rich Nichols (Hope Solo’s lawyer, but more relevant to this case is his role as former WNTPA executive director, by deposition video – 0.75/2)
• *John Langel (WNTPA executive director before Nichols, by deposition video – 1.25/2.5)
• “The Coca-Cola Company through designee John Seiler” (by deposition video – 1/0.25)
• “Visa U.S.A. through designee Ashley Fisher” (by deposition video – 0.75/0.25)

USSF

USSF reserves the right to add more. Plaintiffs are seeking to exclude Moses, Marsteller, Hopfinger and Levine.

Asterisks are different here — these are witnesses USSF will call “only if need arises.” Is USSF that confident?

• *Kay Bradley (USSF brand director, live – 1.5 USSF/1 plaintiffs)
• *Jill Ellis (see above)
• Sunil Gulati (see above)
• Amy Hopfinger (USSF director of events, live – 1.5/1)
• Carlyn Irwin (forensic accounting expert, live – 3.0/1)
• Tom King (see above)
• Meghan Klingenberg (video deposition – 0.75/0.5)
• John Langel (see above)
• *Lisa Levine (former USSF general counsel, not the one involved with recent controversies, live – 1.5/1)
• Paul Marstellar (USSF director of event revenue, live – 1.5/1)
• Justin McCrary (economics expert witness, live – 3/2)
• Philip Miscimarra (labor economics expert witness, live – 2/1)
• Alex Morgan (see above)
• Ross Moses (USSF director of analytics and research, live – 1.25/1)
• Rich Nichols (see above)
• Kelley O’Hara (deposition designation – 1.25/0.5)
• Christen Press (see above – note that USSF doesn’t distinguish that she would be called only if Morgan can’t testify. “Her testimony includes her own admissions,” USSF says.)
• Pinky Raina (see above)
• Rebecca Roux (WNTPA executive director, live or video deposition – 1/1)
• *Russ Sauer (retired lawyer who represented USSF in CBA talks – 1.5/1)

So a few thoughts:

Klingenberg, O’Hara and Roux – seems interesting that USSF is calling them and plaintiffs are not.

Coca-Cola and VISA – relevant because plaintiffs, in motion to exclude evidence of Soccer United Marketing revenue, make the case that these sponsors inquired about sponsoring only the WNT but were told SUM bundles MNT, WNT and everything else.