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Brown v. Pro Football, Inc.: Labor's Antitrust Touchdown Called Back; United States Supreme Court Reinforces Nonstatutory Labor Exemption from Antitrust Laws

Year: 1997
Type: article
Abstract: Justice Breyer opined that the question presented in Brown v. Pro Football, Inc. arose "at the intersection of the Nation's labor and antitrust laws."'That this intersection has always been the source of confusion and uncertainty is an understatement.Peruse any newspaper.Watch any television news program.Listen to any radio broadcast.It appears that athletes and their employers compete as vigorously in the courts as they do on their respective playing fields. 2 Fortunately, the Court left all future travelers through this intersection a useful compass with which to navigate this infamous convergence of law and public policy.Although Brown ostensibly involved professional athletes, by declining to distinguish athletes from other organized workers, the Court has provided a 3.Although Justice Breyer and the majority of the Court recognized that there were some unique aspects to the sports business, the Court dismissed these as irrelevant to the labor exemption question.In his dissent, Justice Stevens pointed to various features of the "parties' collective bargaining relationship which, in the dissent's view make.thiscase "atypical," the Court concluded that "[u]Itimately, we cannot find a satisfactory basis for distinguishing football players from other organized workers.We therefore conclude that all must abide by the same legal rules."See Brown, 116 S.Ct. at 2126.In essence, the Court's holding is a "blanket finding that the employers in all multiemployer groups, in sports or not, have the right to unilaterally implement new terms of employment post-impasse without being subject to antitrust liability."See Gary R.
Institution: University of Tulsa
Language: English
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W877814957
FWCI:
Cites: 2
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Related to: 10