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CHFF legal expert: 8th Circuit Court's Friday decision 'unusual'
Cold, Hard Football Facts for May 2, 2011
The second round of the NFL draft Friday night was temporarily disrupted by news that the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals granted a temporary say that essential returned the NFL to a lockout for the time being. Our collective-bargaining legal expert, Alan S. Millers, briefly discusses that this decision means. He discussed Judge Susan Nelson's earlier decision last week here.
By Alan S. Miller
Cold, Hard Football Facts Legal Expert
The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals' granting of an "administrative" or "temporary" stay of Judge Susan Nelson's lifting of the lockout is somewhat unusual.
Normally, such stays are granted only in emergency situations. Apparently, the Court believed that the burden on everyone in starting and stopping operations warranted it's ruling.
Most significantly, it signaled that it believed that the owners had raised serious legal issues. The big decision, which will come in the next week or two, is whether to permanently stay Judge Nelson's order while the antitrust case is litigated.
Unless that case is fast tracked, it will take months or longer to complete. In that case, the only way there will be a 2011 season is if the parties do what they should have already done, just "roll up their sleeves" and hammer out the issues.
Football Nation LLC/ColdHardFootballFacts.com Expert advisor Alan S. Miller, a Partner in the Boston based Management Labor Law Firm of Stoneman, Chandler & Miller, has negotiated multiple collective bargaining agreements for individual employers and for multi-employer groups similar to the NFL situation.
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