The United States Football League, awarded only...

The United States Football League, awarded only $3 in its antitrust suit against the National Football League, asked U.S. District Judge Peter K. Leisure to grant it a new trial on damages. But the judge indicated he would deny the motion.

In a presentation that took up most of the hourlong hearing, USFL lawyer Harvey Myerson maintained that the six-member jury had been confused by Leisure’s instructions when it held the NFL liable for being a monopoly but voted the young league only $1, tripled under antitrust law to $3. The USFL had been seeking $1.69 billion.

The NFL, meanwhile, asked that Leisure throw out the monopoly finding, the only one of nine counts in the USFL’s suit on which the NFL was found liable.

But Leisure, although saying he would give both sides full legal consideration, told both Myerson and NFL lawyers Frank Rothman and Robert Fiske that he believed the jurors paid “extraordinary attention” during both the testimony and the instructions, which ran to 162 written pages.