Judge Dropped the Ball by Upping Disabled Ex-Player’s Benefits, NFL Pension Plan Tells 5th Circuit

Lawyers for the National Football League’s retirement plan told the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that U.S. District Judge Karen Gren Scholer of Dallas was out of bounds when she ordered a near doubling of benefits for a retired running back who is disabled from injuries he sustained as a player.

In June 2022, at the conclusion of a six-day bench trial, Judge Scholer ruled in favor of the ex-player, Michael Cloud, in his suit against the retirement plan. She ordered the plan to increase his annual disability benefits from $135,000 to $265,000, with blistering words for the plan’s  administrators over what she regarded, in football parlance, as their illegal procedure and unsportsmanlike conduct. The plan’s appeal to the Fifth Circuit asks that her judgment be reversed.