NASCAR asks appeals court to suspend Jeremy Mayfield's injunction
NASCAR has asked for the appeals court to suspend the injunction that allows Jeremy Mayfield (pictured) to compete in NASCAR Sprint Cup activities. // David Griffin, NASCAR Scene
NASCAR has asked the U.S. Court of Appeals to suspend the injunction issued July 1 by U.S. District Court Judge Graham Mullen, who ordered NASCAR to lift its suspension of driver/owner Jeremy Mayfield until it could be determined whether his positive May 1 test for methamphetamines was valid.
The request for NASCAR to put Mayfield back under indefinite suspension until a hearing on the injunction is the first step in the appeals process in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., and Mayfield has until July 15 to respond to NASCAR’s request.
NASCAR argues in its motion that Mullen’s decision could result in a wide array of lawsuits over its ability to police the sport.
“It is against the public interest to allow judicial second-guessing of a private sports organization’s internal rules and decision-making after a participant fails a drug test, absent any evidence of bad faith or illegality,” NASCAR writes in its appeal. “Such second-guessing would invite drug users to routinely seek injunctions in drug-related termination or suspension cases. … It invites the unthinkable: that a driver who tested positive for banned substances could simply declare himself fit to race and litigate himself back onto the track.”
Mayfield, who qualified for five of the first 11 races this season after starting his own team and has 433 career Sprint Cup starts, contends the drug test findings that prompted his suspension resulted from a combination of prescription drug Adderall, which is used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and over-the-counter Claritin-D allergy medicine.
Because Mayfield passed a January 2009 drug test, an expert obtained by Mayfield, Dr. Harold Schueler of the Broward County (Fla.) medical examiner’s office, theorized in court papers that Mayfield is not a chronic user. He also says in an affidavit that pseudoephedrine, an ingredient in Claritin, could convert to methamphetamine if not tested properly.
NASCAR states in its appeal that a false positive resulting from Claritin-D and Adderall is “scientifically impossible” and there is no evidence that would make adulteration or a mixup of Mayfield’s urine samples plausible.
Mayfield has also contended that NASCAR must follow guidelines that regulate federal agencies. NASCAR denies that Aegis Laboratories, which conducts the NASCAR drug-testing program, must follow those regulations.
NASCAR claims that Mullen failed to properly consider the sophistication and sensitivity of the Aegis Laboratories drug testing procedures used to conduct NASCAR’s tests and the fact that Schueler stated that the level of methamphetamine (48,000 nanograms per milliliter) indicates that Mayfield might be a chronic user. NASCAR also questions Mullen’s reasoning that Mayfield could be tested daily, including with a hair test, to see if he is a safety risk. NASCAR says in its appeal that “no such tests even exist.”
It also states that because an independent lab re-tested the Mayfield samples and came up with the same result, the testing procedure cannot be considered flawed (although Mayfield’s attorneys have argued in previous filings that any test conducted after the seal has been broken is not valid).
Although the injunction reinstated Mayfield as an eligible driver and owner, he did not attempt to make the Coke Zero 400 last weekend at Daytona International Speedway and is not on the entry list for this weekend’s LifeLock.com 400 at Chicagoland Speedway. He has until 2:30 p.m. Thursday to enter.
“Mayfield’s participation in NASCAR events presents potentially fatal consequences to other NASCAR drivers, teams and fans,” NASCAR states in its filing.
Mayfield is the first driver suspended since NASCAR implemented random drug-testing this year.
