Senators ask minor leaguers for information on MLB antitrust

United States Courts

The chairman and ranking minority member of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter to an advocacy group for minor leaguers asking questions about baseball’s antitrust exemption.

Sen. Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat who chairs the committee, and Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, sent the letter Tuesday to Harry Marino, executive director of Advocates for Minor Leaguers. The letter, first reported by The Washington Post, also was signed by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah.

The senators asked for information on “the impact of the antitrust exemption on the negotiation of minor league players’ length of contract, wages, housing or other working conditions.”

Baseball’s antitrust exemption was created by the U.S. Supreme Court in a 1922 case involving the Federal League, when Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote in a decision that baseball was not interstate commerce but exhibitions exempt from antitrust laws. The Supreme Court reaffirmed the decision in a 1953 case involving New York Yankees farmhand George Toolson and in the 1972 Curt Flood decision, saying any changes should come from Congress.

The Curt Flood Act of 1998, which President Bill Clinton signed, applies antitrust laws to MLB affecting the employment of major league players at the major league level.

Perhaps the biggest impact of the exemption is that it allows MLB to prevent a franchise from moving to a different city without MLB permission.

Related listings

  • High court sides with ex-athletes in NCAA compensation case

    High court sides with ex-athletes in NCAA compensation case

    United States Courts 06/21/2021

    The Supreme Court decided unanimously Monday that the NCAA can’t enforce rules limiting education-related benefits — like computers and paid internships — that colleges offer to student athletes. The case doesn’t decide whethe...

  • Iowa’s high court stops lawsuit over farm runoff pollution

    Iowa’s high court stops lawsuit over farm runoff pollution

    United States Courts 06/18/2021

    A sharply divided Iowa Supreme Court on Friday stopped a lawsuit aimed at reducing the flow of fertilizer and hog farm waste into the state’s river and streams, finding that limiting pollution from farms was a political matter and not one for t...

  • Supreme Court: Guam can pursue $160M dump cleanup lawsuit

    Supreme Court: Guam can pursue $160M dump cleanup lawsuit

    United States Courts 05/24/2021

    The Supreme Court says the U.S. territory of Guam can pursue a $160 million lawsuits against the federal government over the cost of cleaning up a landfill on the island. The justices on Monday unanimously overturned a a lower court decision that had...

Grounds for Divorce in Ohio - Sylkatis Law, LLC

A divorce in Ohio is filed when there is typically “fault” by one of the parties and party not at “fault” seeks to end the marriage. A court in Ohio may grant a divorce for the following reasons:
• Willful absence of the adverse party for one year
• Adultery
• Extreme cruelty
• Fraudulent contract
• Any gross neglect of duty
• Habitual drunkenness
• Imprisonment in a correctional institution at the time of filing the complaint
• Procurement of a divorce outside this state by the other party

Additionally, there are two “no-fault” basis for which a court may grant a divorce:
• When the parties have, without interruption for one year, lived separate and apart without cohabitation
• Incompatibility, unless denied by either party

However, whether or not the the court grants the divorce for “fault” or not, in Ohio the party not at “fault” will not get a bigger slice of the marital property.

Business News

Amherst, Ohio Family Law Attorney Sylkatis Law serves individuals in matters involving marital divorce, dissolution, child custody, child support. >> read