Not surprisingly, the opening brief for the NFL focuses on the issue of jurisdiction. In its filing with the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday, the league argued that District Court Judge Susan Nelson’s granting of an injunction to end the lockout was wrong and the that the case should be returned to the district court with instructions to dismiss or stay the action.
The National Hockey League also filed an amicus curiae brief with the Circuit Court outlining its support for the NFL’s legal position. While the NHL has no direct interest in Brady v. NFL, it believes it could be adversely impacted by the outcome of the case.
Judge Nelson ruled in April that the players are suffering irreparable harm from the lockout and that the owners do not have the right to stop individual players from working. The owners are appealing that decision. Currently a “temporary” stay granted by the Circuit Court has allowed the NFL to keep the lockout in place.
The brief was filed pursuant to the briefing schedule for the expedited appeal on the stay scheduled to begin on June 3 in St. Louis.
In its filing, the NFL argues that the District Court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to enjoin the lockout. Simply, the league claims that the District Court is not authorized to rule on the dispute between the owners and the players. The league writes that the Norris-LaGuardia Act eliminated the federal court’s right to intervene in the labor dispute and that the resolution of the players’ antitrust lawsuit and the related lockout should be determined by the National Labor Relations Board.
These arguments were previously made by the league and rejected by Judge Nelson in her lengthy decision granting the injunction. She concluded that the Norris-LaGuardia Act was not applicable and that the act “casts a wide net, but not wide enough” to cover the dispute between the league and the individual players. Judge Nelson reasoned in part that the Act did not apply since the union had decertified and that the primary purpose of the statute was to protect and allow employees to form unions without employer interference.
The league also took issue with the validity of the decertification of the union that enabled the players to file their individual antitrust actions. The NFL’s position is that the NFLPA has not truly abandoned its collective bargaining rights but rather decertified as an attempt to put pressure on the league to enter into a new collective bargaining agreement. The league has an action pending before the NLRB claiming that the union failed to negotiate in good faith and that its decertification is invalid.
The NFL also argued that the players will not be likely to win on the merits of their antitrust action and therefore injunctive relief should not be granted. The league writes that “to permit antitrust liability in [this case] would introduce instability and uncertainty into the collective-bargaining process, for antitrust law often forbids or discourages the kinds of joint discussions and behavior that the collective-bargaining process invites or requires.”
The NHL in its brief echoed that position stating that it “has a direct interest in ensuring that the determination of terms and conditions of employment for NHL players is the product of a bona fide labor process rather than the ‘lever’ of potential antitrust liability.”
The league’s position is that federal labor law permits an employer to institute a lockout “for the sole purpose of bringing economic pressure to bear in support of its legitimate bargaining position. The NFL went on to write that the District Court erred in its weighing of the equities in considering the serious, immediate and irreparable harm the injunction posed to the NFL.
In her opinion Judge Nelson wrote that the NFL “offered little, if any evidence to directly rebut the players’ evidence or support its motion for a stay pending appeal.” The lack of factual evidence submitted by the NFL was something that Judge Bye (one of the judges that will hear the appeal) highlighted in his dissenting opinion to the order granting the temporary stay. In his opinion, Judge Bye said that “based on the materials which have been filed in the case up to this point, the NFL has failed to satisfy me it will suffer any irreparable harm from allowing the district court’s order to take effect.”
The Circuit Court will apply a de novo standard of review to questions of the law decided by the District Court. This “legal error” standard allows the Circuit Court to substitute its own judgment about whether Judge Nelson correctly applied the law. As for findings of fact, the appellate court’s will generally not dispute the lower court’s findings of fact absent clear error that resulted in a gross miscarriage of justice.
The NFL players’ response brief is due May 20 followed by the NFL’s reply brief on May 26. Oral arguments for each side are limited to 30 minutes before Judges Duane Benton, Kermit Bye and Steven Colloton. The Circuit Court does not have any guidelines on when it will issue its decision after the June 3 hearing although Michael Gans, the clerk for the Court of Appeals has said that it would be logical to assume that the decision will be on an expedited basis.
The antitrust lawsuit is still pending before Judge Nelson but the current focus has been on the status of the lockout.
