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NFL labor hearing could be a game-changer

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Courts rarely grant the kind of injunction NFL players are seeking Wednesday in St. Paul, but the outcome of the case is difficult to predict because the circumstances surrounding it are unprecedented, according to two sports law professors.

The legal circumstances in the NFL's labor dispute have rarely, if ever, been seen before. (Gail Burton/AP)

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Courts rarely grant the kind of injunction NFL players are seeking Wednesday in St. Paul, but the outcome of the case is difficult to predict because the circumstances surrounding it are unprecedented, according to two sports law professors.

"The players are claiming that if there is no injunction they'll suffer irreparable harm, and it takes a lot to show that you'll suffer irreparable harm," said Jeremi Duru, a sports law professor at Temple Law School. Players, for example, have probably suffered little so far in the lockout since game checks won't be missed for months yet.

"Courts don't run around granting injunctions willy-nilly," Duru said.

Players are seeking an injunction to lift the NFL owners' lockout, forcing the league to resume business with trades, free agency, and training camp.

"Generally speaking, injunctions are a very difficult remedy for plaintiffs to get," said Gabe Feldman, director of the sports law program at Tulane Law School. "It's extraordinary."

Of course, the entire case might be described that way.

"We're dealing with an extremely novel situation," Feldman said.

Leaving aside the unusual national attention and the high-profile principals - including stars such as Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, and Drew Brees as plaintiffs and America's most popular sports league as defendant - the legal circumstances are unheard of.

Feldman said he did not know of any other labor fight in which a sports league - a multiemployer bargaining unit, in legal parlance - locked out players - employees - who had dissolved their union. "This has never happened before."

Duru said sports-law scholars nationwide will be watching the case because of its unique nature. "There's so many moving pieces," he said.

That makes it difficult to predict how Judge Susan Richard Nelson, just months into her tenure as a federal district court judge, will see the competing arguments Wednesday morning.

She will likely take a week or longer to rule. Her decision, if it survives the inevitable appeal by the losing side, will greatly shift bargaining leverage. Siding with the players and lifting the lockout would put pressure on owners to compromise since they would then face an antitrust suit while players comfortably collect their paychecks. If Nelson denies the injunction, players will feel added pressure to make a deal before they begin losing September game checks.

Nelson's ruling won't be the final word, though, since each side has appeals and other legal options. The owners have filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board claiming that the NFL Players Association's decertification is a "sham." If the board agrees, it would cripple the players' legal options since owners would get the antitrust protection that comes with collective bargaining.

Until that ruling is made, though, the players have their antitrust suit looming over ownership.

Neither the antitrust case nor the NLRB complaint has a firm timetable for resolution, though, making the hearing in St. Paul the primary legal battleground for now.