Foul on receiver away from the disc

[HotSauce]

I'm curious to see what people would call on this situation. Receiver is cutting toward the disc. Before he gets to the disc two things happen. 1) Another receiver cuts in front of first receiver and catches and drops the disc. 2) First receiver is fouled (he claims defender hit his arm).

His argument is that he had a play on the disc so it goes back to the thrower. But doesn't the second receiver's catch and drop make it a turnover? And to be clear, the disc was dropped straight to the ground and wasn't batted up for a second effort catch.

[GregS]

If the disc was already uncatchable (because of the drop) before the contact happened, then it's not a foul. A foul is expressly defined as contact which affects your ability to make a play on the disc, and if it's uncatchable, there's no possible play.

[pvet]

The receiver in question was only a couple of feet away and might have believed he had a layout bid option on the fumble if he wasn't fouled.

[HotSauce]

If the second receiver hadn't jumped the route, caught, and dropped the disc, the first receiver may have (and probably would have) had a bid on the disc. However, what happened was that the second receiver DID drop the disc and it was not dropped anywhere where the first receiver could have caught it without somehow sending his arm through the body of the second receiver.

[pvet]

My memory is that the fumble was towards the fouled player, but I could be mistaken. It's too bad I didn't record this game like I've been doing for some of our other games, or we could check the tapes .

Regardless of how the specifics of last night's play, I guess the question in general is what to do if there's a dispute about whether or not the player who called foul actually had a legitimate play on the disc. Presumably if they don't agree, it gets sent back to the thrower per XVI. D.:

If a dispute arises concerning an infraction or the outcome of a play (e.g., a catch where no one had a good perspective), and the teams cannot come to a satisfactory resolution, play stops, and the disc is returned to the thrower and put into play with a check (VIII.D), with the count reached plus one or at six if over five.

[GregS]

I guess the question in general is what to do if there's a dispute about whether or not the player who called foul actually had a legitimate play on the disc. Presumably if they don't agree, it gets sent back to the thrower

Yes and no. A lot of people seem to think that if there's a disputed call, "back to thrower" is the sole remedy. However, the phrase "and the teams cannot come to a satisfactory resolution" in the rule you quoted is important. The intent is that the players involved should discuss it, also listening to others who had a good perspective on the play, and either the initial call or the dispute of it can be retracted. In this case, the player that called the foul might say something like "I see your point, I didn't really have a chance to catch that, and now understand that this means it wasn't a foul; the turnover stands", or the player who contested it might say something like "Yeah, I suppose that the disc was still sort of headed in your direction and you could have laid out for it, so I won't contest the foul".

There is certainly nothing in the rules that says that you back up your teammate's version of the story regardless of evidence to the contrary, or that you should remain silent if you know something that would support the opposition. (I'm not saying that happened here; I wasn't there. But it does happen an awful lot, and is a pet peeve of mine.)

[Mortakai]

There is certainly nothing in the rules that says that you back up your teammate's version of the story regardless of evidence to the contrary, or that you should remain silent if you know something that would support the opposition. (I'm not saying that happened here; I wasn't there. But it does happen an awful lot, and is a pet peeve of mine.)

Fully agree here, Greg. I've spoken up with what I've seen/viewed, regardless of whether it's for/against whichever team (sure I'm an Observer too, but I've always played like that before I became one)... and have sometimes heard or been told afterwards that perhaps I shouldn't have said anything... to which I respond, "oh, sorry, I thought we were playing Ultimate".