Judge Nelson lifts NFL lockout; did not place stay on ruling

U.S. District Court Judge Susan Nelson ruled Monday evening in favor of the players association in the Tom Brady vs. NFL case.

By siding with the players the league-imposed lockout has been lifted. Nelson did NOT place a stay on her decision.

The owners are appealing the decision to the 8th circuit district court and requesting an immediate stay.

Below is a summary of Judge Nelson’s 89-page ruling. In her ruling Judge Nelson has four main factors:

1. The Players Have Demonstrated They Are Suffering, And Will
Continue To Suffer, Irreparable Harm

This Court finds the NFL’s arguments unpersuasive. The Court recognizes that
the employment relationship between the parties reflects a commercial enterprise producing substantial income for both parties. But the particular facts of this case refute any argument that damages alone would suffice to compensate the Players if this Court were not to issue such injunctive relief.

Specifically as to professional football players, this Court has found that “[t]he existence of irreparable injury is underscored by the undisputed brevity and precariousness of the players’ careers in professional sports, particularly in the NFL.”

“The career of a professional athlete is more limited than that of persons engaged in almost any other occupation. Consequently the loss of even one year of playing time is very detrimental.”

Moreover, this Court has observed that the threat of irreparable harm has been
found, and preliminary injunctive relief granted, in cases in which professional athletes’ ability to play, or to play for their team of choice, was threatened.

Once again, the threat of harm shown by the Brady Plaintiffs here, including lost
playing time, constitutes irreparable harm. Declarations submitted by the Brady Plaintiffs in support of the instant motion attest to the likelihood of both collective and individualized harm occasioned by a lockout.

Thus, there is no dispute that, based on the typically short duration
of their professional careers and the constant risk of injury, Plaintiffs have shown it likely that they will suffer irreparable harm if injunctive relief is not granted.

A lockout “deprives” (the players) of new contracts that would be negotiated in a free market, whose precise terms will be impossible to recreate. Therefore, there can be no real dispute that all of the free agent players–Jackson, Leber,
Mankins, Manning and Vrabel–have demonstrated a sufficient threat of irreparable harm warranting the issuance of injunctive relief.

Moreover, they maintain that if the 2011 season is canceled, rookies will be an unfair disadvantage when they must compete subsequently against a new group of rookies who have had the benefit of a full season’s worth of active competition. In addition, the loss of a year in a young player’s career
may diminish that player’s value in the future, as “[y]oung players often maximize their value by negotiating extensions of their current contracts before they reach free agency.”

In sum, the Brady Plaintiffs have met their burden of showing that it is likely that
they will suffer irreparable harm absent the preliminary injunction. The facts of this case, and similar decisions by this Court and others, refute Defendants’ argument that money damages alone would sufficiently compensate Plaintiffs if this Court were not to issue injunctive relief.

2. The Irreparable Harm To The Players Outweighs Any Harm An
Injunction Would Cause the NFL

The NFL argues that the balance of harms weighs in their favor, because if the Court grants the requested injunction, the NFL “undoubtedly would be subject to additional antitrust claims.” This Court is not addressing the merits of the Players’ other antitrust claims–those regarding Player restraints. This Court is not presently addressing whether the non-statutory antitrust exemption would still apply, after the NFLPA’s unequivocal disclaimer of representation, to the mandatory terms of collective bargaining, that is, the terms and conditions of the Players’ employment. And in issuing a preliminary injunction against the lockout, this Court is, of course, only ruling that the Brady Plaintiffs have a fair chance of prevailing on that particular claim. Such an injunction is not an adjudication that the NFL is liable for any antitrust violation.

The League also contends that “an injunction would lead” to “the more favorably
situated teams signing the best players” and thus “harm the NFL by destroying the competitive balance that is essential” to its business. ut again, that argument rests on the misconception that an injunction against the
lockout addresses the merits of the Players’ antitrust claims regarding the various Player restraints such as “‘restrictions on player free agency.’” This Court is not presently addressing the merits of the antitrust claims regarding Player restrictions and is not ruling on whether the non-statutory labor exemption shields the League from such claims.

3. The Players Have Established A Fair Chance of Success on The
Merits

This Court need not defer to the NLRB to conclude that the Union’s disclaimer, having been unequivocal and made in good faith, is effective to remove this action from the reach of the Norris-LaGuardia Act.

The NFL argues that the Brady Plaintiffs cannot show a likelihood of success on
the merits because: (1) the nonstatutory labor exemption protects lockouts by
multiemployer bargaining units; (2) the exemption continues to apply until the challenged conduct is sufficiently distant in time and in circumstances from the collective bargaining process; (3) the exemption protects the challenged lockout from antitrust scrutiny; and (4) Plaintiffs’ ‘waiver’ argument lacks merit.

In ruling upon that request for injunctive relief, this Court need not–and does
not–address whether the non-statutory labor exemption still applies so as to shield the NFL from the Players’ other antitrust claims, that is, those regarding the various restraints the League imposes on the Players. Resolution of the issue of whether the exemption precludes relief on the NFL’s various Player restraints must await another day. The present motion requires this Court only
to address whether that exemption protects the League’s lockout.

As the Players contend, the NFL’s lockout “constitutes an agreement among competitors to eliminate competition for the services of major league professional football players” in the relevant United States market, which
operates “as a perpetual horizontal group boycott and price-fixing agreement”

As the Brady Plaintiffs observe, the NFL does “not contest that their ‘lockout’ is a
per se unlawful group boycott and price-fixing agreement in violation of antitrust law.” Rather, the NFL’s defense is confined to their argument that the non-statutory labor exemption from antitrust liability continues to protect the
League because the NFLPA’s disclaimer was invalid and ineffective and that resolution of that issue is for the NLRB and not this Court. Because this Court has disposed of those arguments, the NFL presently has identified no defense against Count I of the Brady Plaintiffs’ Complaint.

And as Judge Doty ruled in McNeil, once the union disclaims its role as the
bargaining agent for its members or formally obtains decertification, the protection provided employers by the non-statutory labor exemption is lifted.

Although Judge Doty was not addressing the issue of a lockout, the factual context in which he was ruling provides no basis to distinguish his decision because, under his broad ruling, the exemption is lifted entirely. The fact that
substantial time had passed in McNeil since the Union’s disclaimer is not controlling here, because Judge Doty did not condition his ruling on the legal effect of disclaimer based on any such temporal restrictions.

The NFL has identified no legal authority, controlling or otherwise, that stands for the proposition that the non-statutory labor exemption from antitrust liability, extends to protect the labor negotiation tool of a “lockout,” as opposed to a mandatory term of collective bargaining, after a union has disclaimed any further representation of its members.

4. The Public Interest Does Not Favor The “Lockout”

The final factor in this analysis is consideration of the public interest.

Moreover, the public ramifications of this dispute exceed the abstract principles of the antitrust laws, as professional football involves many layers of tangible economic impact, ranging from broadcast revenues down to concessions sales. And, of course, the public interest represented by the fans of professional football–who have a strong investment in the 2011 season–is an intangible
interest that weighs against the lockout. In short, this particular employment dispute is far from a purely private argument over compensation.