Antony Brown, et al. v. Pro Football, Inc., Dba Washington Redskins, et al. (518 U.S. 231)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 20, 1996 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 518 U.S. 231 · 116 S. Ct. 2116
- Decided
- June 20, 1996
- Term
- October Term 1995
- Vote
- 8–1
- Majority author
- Justice Breyer
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Affirmed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice Breyer delivered the opinion of the Court. The question in this ease arises at the intersection of the Nation’s labor and antitrust laws. A group of professional football players brought this antitrust suit against football club owners. The club owners had bargained with the players’ union over a wage issue until they reached impasse. The owners then had agreed among themselves (but not with the union) to implement the terms of their own last best bargaining offer. The question before us is whether federal labor laws shield such an agreement from antitrust attack. We believe that they do. This Court has previously found in the labor laws an implicit antitrust exemption that applies where needed to make the collective-bargaining process work. Like the Court of Appeals, we conclude that this need makes the exemption applicable in this case. I We can state the relevant facts briefly. In 1987, a collective-bargaining agreement between the National Football League (NFL or League), a group of football clubs, and the NFL Players Association, a labor union, expired. The NFL and the Players Association began to negotiate a new contract. In March 1989, during the negotiations, the NFL adopted Resolution G-2, a plan that would permit each club to establish a “developmental squad” of up to six rookie or “first-year” players who, as free agents, had failed to secure a position on…
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