On January 22, 2016, Devin Pugh, former Weber State University cornerback and named plaintiff in a punitive class action suit against the NCAA, filed a motion to intervene into a similar suit brought against the NCAA over the leagues limits on scholarships for Division I athletes.
Pugh filed his motion to intervene and join the proposed antitrust suit brought by John Rock over the NCAA’s “artificial” limits on scholarships offered to athletes who compete in Division I football programs. Rock’s suit is grounded on his assertion that he was recruited by Division I football programs but was not offered any scholarship aid due to the NCAA’s capped limits. Pugh on the other hand, received an offer from a Division I program but decided to attend Weber State, a lower Football Champions Subdivision. In his motion to intervene, Pugh argued that his interests may be “impaired or impeded” by Rock’s case if the court finds that Rock is not an adequate representative or if class certification is otherwise denied. Further, Pugh’s motion argued, “[r]equiring Pugh to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to relitigate the very issues currently teed up in this court would inefficient and costly.”
Pugh’s concern stems from the NCAA’s fight against class certification in the Rock case. The NCAA has argued that Rock cannot prove he was recruited by Division I programs and he is not an adequate representative of the class since he lost his scholarship at Garner-Webb as a result of his voluntary withdrawal. Pugh’s motion argues that Rock is both an adequate representative of the class and his harm is typical of the class members as a whole. However, Pugh asserts that if the court decides in favor of the NCAA on the issue of class certification, then his interests would not be adequately represented by the existing parties, thereby entitling him the right to intervene. The motion further argues that if the court does not permit Pugh to intervene as a matter of right, then it should grant permissive intervention because “Pugh does not suffer from the same supposed deficiencies as those alleged by the NCAA against Rock.”
The motion supports Pugh’s contention, pointing out that unlike Rock, he was recruited and actually received an offer from the University of New Mexico, a Division I football program.