A federal judge wrote a 21-page ruling on a bounty case involving the Washington Redskins—without actually using the word “Redskins.” Instead, he made the executive decision to call them “the Washington team.”
Taking a stand in the long-simmering debate over the football team’s embattled name, U.S. District Judge Peter J. Messitte replaced “Redskins” with “the Washington team” in basically all instances — about 12 — that the name would have been used.
Messitte mentions “Redskins” in the first sentence, but then immediately declares in a footnote: “Pro Football’s team is popularly known as the Washington ‘Redskins,’ but the Court will refrain from using the team name unless reference is made to a direct quote where the name appears. Pro Football’s team will be referred to hereafter simply as ‘the Washington Team.’”
And Messitte keeps to his word, but it doesn’t make for the smoothest read.
“…on December 5, 2004, Green, who was a defensive linebacker for the New York Giants, was playing in a game with the Washington team at the Washington team’s Maryland stadium.”
Another whopper of a sentence quickly follows:
“According to the Complaint, the Washington team deemed Green a disruptive ‘presence’ in his team’s prior win against the Washington team on September 19, 2014, after Green stopped Washington’s running game and recovered a fumble…”
As dizzying as it may be for the reader, the attorneys in the case still had it tougher. According to a lawyer for the case cited in The Washington Post, Messitte did not allow the case’s lawyers to use the word ‘Redskins’ in his courtroom.
Messitte’s substitution-laden ruling comes after the U.S. Patents office canceled the Redskin’s trademark registration in June.
