Jump to content

Fangraphs: Supreme Court Asked to Overturn Baseball's Anti-Trust Exemption


weams

Recommended Posts

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/u-s-supreme-court-asked-to-overturn-baseballs-antitrust-exemption/

In its Petition for A Writ of Certiorari - the formal name of an appeal to the Supreme Court - the city argues that none of the original legal justifications for the exemption remain.

The exemption was created back in 1922, when a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that MLB was not engaged in "interstate commerce,"and therefore was not subject to the federal antitrust laws. While this characterization of professional baseball may seem ridiculous today, it was in fact consistent with the Supreme Court's jurisprudence at the time.

In any event, the Supreme Court later shifted the justification for baseball's antitrust immunity. The Court considered the issue again in 1953, deciding not to revoke the exemption not only because it would be unfair to retroactively apply the antitrust laws to MLB - since the league had been left for 30 years to develop its business in reliance on this immunity - but also because it appeared that Congress had implicitly approved of the exemption by failing to pass a bill overturning it in the interim. This same rationale carried the day again in 1972 " in the infamous case of Flood v. Kuhn " the last time that the Supreme Court has considered the antitrust exemption to date.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is a new take on that.

But this issue is still the same. The Court said 60 years ago this is Congress' job, and they've refused to address it. Now, I think they should correct their previous errors, but it's not often when the Court will rule against a previous ruling they've issued, that didn't involve incorporating the original 10 Amendments.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

But this issue is still the same. The Court said 60 years ago this is Congress' job, and they've refused to address it. Now, I think they should correct their previous errors, but it's an extremely rare occasion when the Court will rule against a previous ruling they've issued.

OR even choose to hear the argument.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...