[Westside]

The NFLPA filed a request for a temporary restraining order in the Eastern District of Texas, calling for the courts to block any suspension of Ezekiel Elliott upheld by NFL arbitrator Harold Henderson, according to a court filing obtained by ESPN.

The NFLPA filing calls for the court to vacate any suspension of Elliott, accusing the league's appeal process of being "fundamentally unfair" and citing new facts revealed during this week's hearing that wrapped up ThursdaySource: Top investigator favored no Elliott ban.

The NFL's director of investigations testified in the hearing on the appeal of Ezekiel Elliott's six-game suspension on Tuesday that she would not have recommended discipline for the Cowboys running back based on what she found, a source told ESPN.
If Henderson rules that Elliott remains suspended for any stretch of games, the court then can decide to stay the suspension while it reviews the matter, and Elliott could potentially be allowed to play while the case works its way through the courts.

In the filing, the NFLPA alleges "there was a League-orchestrated conspiracy by senior NFL executives .... to hide critical information -- which would completely exonerate Elliott."

According to the filing, Kia Wright Roberts, the NFL's director of investigations, testified Tuesday that she was the only NFL employee who interviewed the running back's accuser, Tiffany Thompson, during the investigation and that she would not have recommended discipline for Elliott based on what she found.

Roberts further testified, according to the hearing transcripts, that she was not included in the part of the process where the committee that investigated the Elliott matter recommended discipline to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.

The NFLPA says Roberts concluded after reviewing all evidence that Thompson "was not credible in her allegations of abuse," according to the filing.

"The withholding of this critical information from the disciplinary process was a momentous denial of the fundamental fairness required in every arbitration and, of course, does not satisfy federal labor law's minimal due process requirements," the union wrote.

On top of that, the NFLPA claims, Elliott and the union were denied the rights of a fair procedure when Henderson would not grant their request to have Thompson testify. Elliott did testify at this week's appeal hearing.

"As such, not only was Elliott denied the most fundamental rights to be able to confront his accuser and to have her credibility assessed against his, the arbitrator also rendered himself incapable of directly assessing the credibility of Thompson -- which was critical to the fairness of the proceeding," the NFLPA wrote.

The NFLPA also questioned Henderson's refusal to have Goodell testify in the appeals hearing, saying: "Without testimony from the Commissioner, it was not possible to determine the full impact of the conspiracy, or precisely what the Commissioner knew or did not know about his co-lead investigator's conclusion that there was not sufficient credible evidence to proceed with any discipline under a League Personal Conduct Policy."

http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/20526...el-elliott