Federal judge rules against suspended New Orleans Saints players Will Smith, Charles Grant and former Saint Deuce McAllister; suspensions will be upheld

Posted by Mike Triplett, The Times-Picayune May 23, 2009 12:13AM

Saints defensive ends Will Smith and Charles Grant and former Saints tailback Deuce McAllister will have to serve their four-game suspensions at the start of the 2009 season after a federal judge threw out their lawsuit against the NFL late Friday in Minnesota.

According to the Associated Press, Judge Paul Magnuson dismissed the suit, which was filed by the NFL Players Association on behalf of the three Saints players and Minnesota Vikings defensive tackles Pat Williams and Kevin Williams last December. He remanded two separate claims brought on by the Williamses to state court in Minnesota.
All five players were suspended after testing positive for a banned diuretic, bumetanide, last summer. But the suspensions were put on hold pending the outcome of the legal process.

A trial date had been set for June 15, but Magnuson made a summary judgment after reviewing all of the pretrial motions and hearing arguments from both sides last week.

“The (league’s) policy is unequivocal: players are responsible for what is in their bodies, and inadvertent ingestion of a banned substance will not excuse a positive test result,” Magnuson wrote in his decision, according to the Associated Press.

All five players claimed that the bumetanide was an unlisted ingredient in an over-the-counter weight loss product called StarCaps. Further, they argued that the NFL knew StarCaps was a tainted product but failed to properly warn players, and that the league-appointed arbitrator who ruled on their suspensions, NFL attorney Jeffrey Pash, had a conflict of interest.

Although Magnuson suggested that the NFL’s decision to not specifically warn the players about StarCaps was “baffling,” he said it was not the league’s responsibility to do so.

“NFL players are adults,” Magnuson wrote. “They are warned repeatedly not to take dietary supplements and that such supplements may cause a positive test for a banned substance.”

None of the players, nor NFLPA attorney Jeffrey Kessler was reached for comment Friday night. NFL spokesman Greg Aiello told the AP: “The decision strongly supports the NFL program on performance enhancing substances that protects the health and safety of NFL players and the integrity of our game.”

The Saints have been preparing for the possibility of losing Smith and Grant to start the season. They added veteran defensive end Paul Spicer early in free agency and recently added defensive end Anthony Hargrove to a mix that already includes Bobby McCray, Jeff Charleston and Rob Ninkovich.

McAllister, who was released by the Saints in late February, still has not signed with another team.

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