Parrish et al v. National Football League Players Incorporated

Filing 254

Declaration of Ronald Katz in Support of 253 Reply Memorandum, filed byBernard Paul Parrish, Walter Roberts, III, Herbert Anthony Adderley. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit 1, # 2 Exhibit 2, # 3 Exhibit 3, # 4 Exhibit 4, # 5 Exhibit 5, # 6 Exhibit 6, # 7 Exhibit 7, # 8 Exhibit 8, # 9 Exhibit 9, # 10 Exhibit 10, # 11 Exhibit 11, # 12 Exhibit 12, # 13 Exhibit 13, # 14 Exhibit 14)(Related document(s) 253 ) (Katz, Ronald) (Filed on 4/4/2008)

Exhibit 3 to the Declaration of Ronald Katz in Further Support of Plaintiffs' Motion for Class Certification

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Bernard Parrish
age 1
1

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
2 3

SAN FRANCISCO DIVISION
BERNARD PAUL PARRISH,

4 HERBERT ANTHONY ADDERLEY, and WALTER ROBERTS, III, 5 on behalf of themselves and all others similarly 6 situated, laintiffs, .
9 NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE ) PLAYERS ASSOCIATION, a

CO PY
CIVIL ACTION NO. C07-0943-WHA

10 Virginia corporation and } NATIONAL FOOTBALL PLAYERS,) 11 INC., d/b/a PLAYERS, INC.,) a Virginia Corporation,
2 Defendants. 3 14 --------

15 VIDEOTAPED DEPOSITION OF BERNARD PAUL PARRISH 16 7 18 19 0 21 Reported by: Lori Goodin Mackenzie, RPR-CLR 22 Job No.: 200716 hursday, March 13, 2008

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Bernard Parrish

age 11 1 Roy Taub of Dewey & LeBoeuf representing the
2 defendants.
3

MR. KATZ: Ron Katz and Noel Cohen

4 of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP, representing 5 the plaintiffs. THE VIDEOGRAPHER: Will the reporter 7 please swear in the witness.
8

BERNARD PAUL PARRISH,

9 a witness called for examination, having been. 10 first duly sworn, was examined and testified as 11 follows: 12 13 14 . XAMINATION BY COUNSEL FOR DEFENDANTS Y MR. KESSLER: ood morning, Mr. Parrish. My name

15 is Jeffrey Kessler and I represent the defendants 16 in this matter. 17 r. Parrish, can you please state

18 your address for the record, please, current home 19 address. 20 . 129 Northwest 32nd Street in

21 Gainesville, Florida, 32605. 22 . nd what is your current occupation,

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Bernard Parrish Page 13
. 2 . ive me a guess. 0.

.
4

kay.
R. KATZ: I'm going to object to

5 that question. HE WITNESS: Maybe more, I don't 7 know, that' s a guess. 8 BY MR. KESSLER:

.

ow many litigations have either you

10 been personally i nvolved in or has a company you 11 have owned been involved in?
MR. KATZ: I object. You may

THE WITNESS: You object. Okay. 15 I'd have to guess, so, you know. 16 BY MR. KESSLER:

7
18 9 20

.
. . .

ould i t be more than 30?
o. I doubt that it's more than 30. ore than 20? ore than 20, yeah. But, maybe more

23 than 30, yeah.

22

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o you consider yourself to be

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Bernard Parrish Page 39
1 suit is the way to kick their asses, and we 2 already have it filed i n California." ow, Mr.. Parrish, is that a 4 reference to this action? . 6 this action.
7 . kay.

es. Uh-huh. That's a reference to

.

h-huh. Since it's already filed in

9 California, there's no other suits filed in 10 California that I know of. 11 . nd then you go on to say

12 "Merlin" -- I'm going a few lines down. 3 Merlin is right. I'm not inclined

14 to compromise with these bastards. They think we 15 are gutless of the playing field. 6 17 8 9 . . . ff the playing field. ff the playing field. Okay. s Merlin, Merlin Olsen? es. I think --- he's the only

20 Merlin. I know, yes. 21 2 . . nother retired player? es.

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Bernard Parrish Page 61
. . . kay. es. nd then it goes on to say:

4 have the list of those we want to depose and the 5 documents we need to subpoena from TV contracts 6-to Upshaw's contract with Condon, Retirement 7 Board transcript, Tagliabue and Goodell's 8 contracts, phone and e-mail records, personal 9 relationships, Mullins -- et cetera, by the end 10 of next week. 1 I don't know how we are going to

12 select our own witnesses without offending
13 people."

4 5 .

id you write this paragraph, sir? es. I wrote this letter, I think.

16 Well, I wrote this part that I'm reading, yes, I 17 wrote that. 18 . kay. And you were stating here

19 that you intended to depose all of these 20 individuals and subpoena their documents in this 21 letter? 2 . es. That was my intent, yes.

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Bernard Parrish Page 149
1 R. KATZ: Object. HE WITNESS: Well, you know, things 3 kind of, things change as time goes by and we get 4 more information. nd the Players Association and 6 Mr. Upshaw do things like make announcements that 7 he does not -- that it's illegal for the NFLPA to 8 represent retired players, that he doesn't 9 represent retired players. 0 o from that point on, what -- why

11 would you have anything --- why would the retired 12 players have anything to do with Gene Upshaw? 13 BY MR. KESSLER: 4 . kay. So I'd just like you to

15 answer. I think your answer is -16 17 again. 8 . think your answer i s yes, that one . ell, I'm sorry. Tell me -- ask me

19 of the objectives of all of these actions is to 20 get rid of Gene Upshaw because the retired 21 players you believe should oppose Mr. Upshaw. 22 R. KATZ: Object.

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Bernard Parrish Page 1$$
1 represented. 2 nd that could spawn some suits.

3 Certainly it could, yes, in other areas. 4 . t the time you wrote this, you

5 believed i t to be true, correct?
A. 'm not rue, -I didn't -- you

7 know,. I don't write anything that I don't believe 8 to be true.
9

I'm just not sure exactly what this

10 is -- like I said, it looks like an incomplete
11 sentence. Didn't I say that? Is that the -12 13 14 perfect. . . ou wrote this document -et me read it. Yes, I'm not

15 16 right?
17 18

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ou wrote i t just four months ago,

A.
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ust four months ago.
es.

19

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ou know how many documents I've

20 written in four months? 21 22 many. es, you do, you know, you know how

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Bernard Parrish
Page 1.92 1 tobacco suit. He put together a number of firms
2 and put together a suit against the tobacco 3 industry. . 5 . nd who is Marlon Kimpson? e is an attorney from Motley Rice,

6 who is suing you guys right now over the Ponzi 7 scheme in Atlanta. That's who he is. R. KATZ: I think I need to consult 9 with my client for a moment to find out whether 10 this is a privileged document that was 11 inadvertently produced. 2 13 while I -4 R. KESSLER: Well, why don't we -o, we need to take a short break

15 I'll put it aside and you can do that at the next 16 break, okay? 17 18 right. 19
20 it.

MR. KATZ: Sure. That's fine. All

MR. KESSEL ER: So I'll come back to

21

HE WITNESS: Oh, Elliot Spitzer is

22 missing from it. We might want to talk about

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Bernard Parrish
Page 193 1 this. R. KATZ: There's no question 3 pending. There's no question pending. HE WITNESS: That's a current 5 event. MR. KATZ: There's no question 7 pending.
8

THE WITNESS:

All right.

9 BY MR. KESSLER: 0 . kay. Mr. Parrish, in connection

11 with this lawsuit, which of your counsel did you 12 first talk to about filing this lawsuit? 13 14 15 A. Q. A. About this lawsuit? Yes. Well, I I researched on the

16 internet and found that Ron Katz had beaten 17 baseball in a similar situation and I contacted 18 him. 19 called him and asked him if he

20 would be interested and it took us a while. 21 Talking about it for him to decide that he would 22 take it.

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Bernard Parrish
Page 217 nd it says: "Bernie, here are the

Q.

2 details you requested on Players, Inc.'s top four 3 executives have all either resigned or retired 4 within the past few months." 5 6 . o you see that? es. I remember them retiring and

7 resigning, yes. 8 . o you were utilizing Mr. Weinberg

9 as a source to gather information to put into 10 your complaint; - is that true? 11 12 R. KATZ: Object. HE WITNESS: Gosh, I guess you

13 would say I would gather information from anybody 14 I could, including Weinberg, and anybody else. 15 BY MR. KESSLER: 16 . o you consider Mr. Weinberg a

17 reliable source of information about the NFLPA or 18 Players, Inc.? 19 20 R. KATZ: Object. HE WITNESS: I have no idea if he's

21 reliable or not. He has certainly not given me 22 any information that was not reliable.

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Bernard Parrish
Page 218 Parrish Exhibit Number 368 arked for identification.)

1 2 3 BY MR. KESSLER:
4 .5 4017. .

et me mark next a document Class

6
7 8

.

o you have this?
R. KATZ: We have all of them. HE WITNESS: Okay.

9 BY MR. KESSLER: 10 11 12 13 questions. 14 HE WITNESS: All right. . . his will be 368. on -R. KATZ: Just answer the

15 BY MR. KESSLER: 16 . nd this document, Mr. Parrish, is

17 an e-mail from you to Steven Brown; is that 18 correct? 19 20 21 22 . . . . o Steven Brown, yes. ho is Steven Brown? e's an attorney from Memphis. kay. Was this someone else you

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Bernard Parrish

Page 219 1 were recruiting to be involved in your lawsuit,
2 this lawsuit? 3 . ell, I think Steven contacted tine, I

4 think. I didn't contact him. 5 R. KATZ: Mr. Kessler, this is

6 another one that I think I should consult with 7 Mr. Parrish to find out whether it is privileged 8 or not and inadvertently produced. 9 o, would you like to put it aside

10 as I did with the other one and we'll deal with 11 it on a break? 12 BY MR. KESSLER: 13 14 part. 15 hat I will ask about is, for the . ell, I won t ask him about the top

16 moment is a second part which is an e-mail from 17 you to Steve Weinberg, Steven Brown, Carl'Poston, 18 Gregory Barry, Dana Thompson and Perry Applebaum. 19 20 21 . . o you see that? see that, yes. ow, Mr. Steven Brown is a lawyer

22 for Mr. Carl Poston; is that correct?

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Bernard Parrish
Page 270

f we have to put it into evidence 2 at trial, we'll put in the original book. R. KATZ: Yes. We would request 4 that you just put in the actual book.
5

MR. KESSLER: I only have one copy of the book and that's why we did it this way.

7 But, if we have to use the evidence at trial 8 we'll use the original book. THE WITNESS: Well, there is at 10 least 600,000 of them in print. So it's pretty 11 easy to get. 12 BY MR. KESSLER: 3 . et's take a look at Page 288, if we

14 can, of this document. 15 16 17 18 A. Q. A. Q. 288? 288. 288. Yes. Yes. Okay. And you'll notice at the n the top.

19 bottom here i t -- at the last paragraph it says: 20 "Thus the deceptive song and dance, the intrigues 21 are droning on within the Players' Association." 22 ow, you wrote that, right?

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Bernard Parrish Page 271
1 . . es. I sure did, yes. nd that Players' Association was

3 the NFLPA, correct? 4 . . es. That's right, yes. nd you then wrote that: "Now Alan

6 Miller has been replaced _by_two Minneapolis labor_ 7 law attorneys," correct"?

.
. 0 11 2 13 . . .

ight.
ne of those is Richard Berthelsen? o you remember who they were? ot necessarily, no. kay. Is it fair to say -did write -- it was, you know,

14 this was 30 years ago I wrote this.

5

.

s it fair to say that you have been

16 opposed to the policies of the NFL Players'
17 Association for more than 30 years? 18 9 R. KATZ: Object. HE WITNESS: To the policies? Yes.

20 They've had some very destructive policies from 21 the players' standpoint and the public, yes. 22 BY MR. KESSLER:

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Bernard Parrish Page 317
. et me show you next a document hold that 2 that's been marked Exhibit 23. Well, 3 for a second.
Let me show you a copy -5

A.

23 . MR. KATZ: Just hold on.

7 BY MR. KESSLER:
8

Q-

Let's move on to something else.

9 Let me show you next a document that 's marked 10 Exhibit 166. Oh, we did this already, 11 Yes. 12 et me mark next a document, Class right?

13 3426, that we'll mark as Exhibit 374.
14

(Parrish Exhibit Number 374 marked for identification.) MR. KATZ: And after your question

15 16

17 on this one, if we could have a break that would 18 be good. 9 R. KESSLER: Okay.

20 BY MR. KESSLER: 21 . r. Parrish, do you recognize this

22 as a document that you wrote?

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Bernard Parrish
Page 318 s it an e-mail? What is it?
t was produced by your counsel. 1

.
2 Q.

3 assume from your computer. . t must he an e-mail.

R. KATZ: The question is just .6 6 simply do you recognize it as something you 7 wrote. HE WITNESS: Well, yes. Sounds 9 like something I wrote, yeah. 10 BY MR. KESSLER: 1 . f you look at the second paragraph

12 it says: "Bernie Parrish will run for executive 13 director of the NFLPA on the following platform. 14 Provide it will not adversely

15 affect our class action suit against the NFLPA 16 and Players, Inc." 17 18 that? o you see that, that you wrote

19
20

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es. Uh-huh.
o, if you could, if it doesn't

21 adversely affect this action, you would like to 22 run for executive director on the following

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Bernard Parrish Page 361
1 says: "It will engage in activities like 2 bringing class action lawsuits, testifying before 3 Congress and providing information to the media 4 highlighting the situation of those whose former 5 physically demanding careers have resulted in 6.long - term damage to their health." 7 as that the expectation when

8 Retired Players for Justice was formed that these 9 are the activities that i t would engage in? 10 . don't remember that wording, but

11 we were -- it was to gather and distribute 12 information about all of our issues, and in 13 particular the testifying before Congress and the 14 issues that are -- that we've gotten before 15 Congress and about all lawsuits including this 16 one. 17 nd, you know, in all of the issues.

18 It was going to be a focal point, but you guys 19 sort of shot that down with your demand that we 20 freeze it. 21 nd sort of, you know, put us into

22 a, oh, a state of confusion, a bit of confusion.

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Bernard Parrish Page 425
1 ERTIFICATE OF COURT REPORTER 2 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ) 3 DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 4 , LORI G. MACKENZIE, the reporter before

5 whom the foregoing deposition was taken, do 6 hereby certify that the witness whose testimony 7 appears in the _foregoing deposition was sworn by 8 me; that the testimony of said witness was taken 9 by me in machine shorthand and thereafter 10 transcribed by computer-aided transcription; that 11 said deposition is a true record of the testimony 2 given by said witness; that I am neither counsel 13 for, related to, nor employed by any of the 14 parties to the action in which this deposition 15 was taken; and, further, that I am not a relative 16 or employee of any attorney or counsel employed
17 by the parties hereto, or financially or

18 otherwise interested in the outcome of this 19 action.
20

LORI G. MACKENZIE
21

Notary Public in and for the District of Columbia

22

My Commission expires April 14, 2011

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