Saturday, November 9, 2013

Peterson v. Kennedy and NFLPA case brief

Peterson v. Kennedy and NFLPA case brief summary
771 F.2d 1244 (1985)


CASE SYNOPSIS
Plaintiff professional football player appealed from judgments of the United States District Court for the Southern District of California entered in favor of defendant union on plaintiff's claim for breach of the duty of fair representation and in favor of defendant attorneys on plaintiff's legal malpractice claim.

CASE FACTS
Plaintiff football player filed suit against defendant union for breach of the duty of fair representation, alleging that defendant attorneys, who were staff counsel for defendant union, erroneously advised him to file the wrong type of grievance and failed to rectify the error when there was an opportunity to do so. Plaintiff also claimed that defendant attorneys committed malpractice. The trial court entered judgment for defendants. On appeal, the court affirmed. The court found that defendant union did not act in an arbitrary, discriminatory, or bad faith manner and held that mere negligence or an error in judgment was insufficient to impose liability for breach of the duty of fair representation.

DISCUSSION

  • The court affirmed the directed verdict in favor of defendant first attorney because a union attorney may not be held liable in malpractice to an individual union member for acts performed as the union's agent in the collective bargaining process. 
  • The court affirmed the summary judgment entered in favor of defendant second attorney. 
  • The trial court lacked personal jurisdiction over him because his only contact with the forum state were phone calls and letters.

CONCLUSION

The court affirmed the judgment in favor of defendant union because it did not breach its duty of fair representation. The court affirmed the directed verdict in favor of defendant first attorney because he was not liable in malpractice to plaintiff football player for acts he performed as the union's agent. The court affirmed the summary judgment in favor of defendant second attorney because of lack of personal jurisdiction.

Suggested Study Aid For Sports Law

No comments:

Post a Comment

In re Morgan Brown Case Brief: Key Takeaways on Trademark Descriptiveness and Acquired Distinctiveness

Case Brief: In re Morgan Brown, 119 U.S.P.Q. 2d 1350 (Trademark Tr. & App. Bd. 2016) Facts: Morgan Brown applied to register a trademar...