The Stanley Cup has been won, baseball is going full speed and football is just starting. What better time to think about how the world of sports intersects with the world of law?
Sports are a fertile breeding ground for litigation. People are willing to go to the wall over what’s happening in sports. It says something about our culture when people are far more willing to spend money going to court over sports issues than over many other things in their lives. If you don’t believe me and don’t think sports gives rise to virtually every type of legal case, consider the following.
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Greed, corruption, fraud, theft. Carl Brewer launched a one-man campaign against the NHL to assert players’ pension rights, won and saw an award of $40 million go to retired professional hockey players. That civil case led to the investigation of Allan Eagleson, a players’ agent who bilked the men out of money for his own personal gain and ended up in personal and professional disgrace.
Violence. From Mike Tyson biting ears and getting into bar fights to the Maki-Green stick swinging incident in hockey, violence in sports has led to numerous prosecutions. The general rule is that the violence has to exceed the level of ordinary consent in that sport. The level of tolerance for violence is quite different in hockey than in table tennis.
Even cheerleading has led to criminal charges when a mom killed a student so her own daughter could get a spot on the cheerleading squad.
Disability law. Casey Martin was a pro golfer who had a degenerative leg disease that prevented him from walking the course, but the PGA wouldn’t allow him to ride in a cart. He sued, won and got the right to play even though he didn’t play well.
Another case involved double amputee Oscar Pistorious, who was seeking the right to try out as an Olympic sprinter but whose artificial carbon fibre legs were seen by some as an unfair advantage. Pastorious won, but didn’t qualify by 7/10 of a second.
Human rights. Renee Richards started life as a man but had transgender surgery and became a woman. She sued the United States Tennis Association for the right to compete professionally as a woman and won. She didn’t win many tennis matches, though.
More recently, female ski jumpers sued the Olympic Committee, claiming discrimination kept them out of the games.
Civil rights. Cassius Clay, later Muhammad Ali, engaged the U.S. government in a long, drawn-out court battle over being inducted into the army during the Vietnam War. It took years but the Supreme Court vindicated Ali. There have also been innumerable harassment cases, often between athletes and their coaches.
Sports give rise to ridiculous cases and results, just as other sectors do. Donald Trump ran the United States Football League, an upstart rival to the National Football League. He sued, claiming the NFL was violating the anti-trust laws by dominating stadium locations and broadcasting rights and freezing out his league. He won, but the jury only awarded him $3, plus 76 cents interest.
There is also the ongoing saga of Jim Balsillie suing Gary Bettman over the right to move the Phoenix hockey franchise to Hamilton. I suspect that case isn’t going to be done for quite a while.
Millions of dollars are spent every year on these cases and you have to ask from a social perspective, do they really matter?
As parents, we like to see our kids involved in sports because we think they can teach something about life. That can be all too true.
Rick Danyliuk is a practising lawyer in Saskatoon with McDougall Gauley LLP. He also has experience in teaching and writing about legal issues. His columns are intended as general advice only. He can be reached at thelaw@producer.com.
