A federal judge from the Western District of Missouri has confirmed an arbitration award, requiring a group of players to litigate their workers compensation claims under Missouri law as opposed to California law, which would be more favorable to them.
Specifically, the court found that the players “have not met their burden to show their workers’ compensation claims fall within California’s workers’ compensation regime.”
The claim centered on an arbitration provision, which is “standard language in the contract entered between National Football League (NFL) players and the players’ certain NFL Club.” Further, NFL players “are bound by a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) negotiated between the National Football League Management Council (NFLMC), on behalf of all NFL teams including the Kansas City Chiefs (Chiefs), and the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA), on behalf of NFL players. The CBA includes a collectively-bargained standard NFL player contract that each player enters with an NFL club.”
Under the player contract and Article IX of the now-expired CBA, “all disputes involving the interpretation or enforcement of the CBA or NFL Player Contract must be submitted to final and binding arbitration before a mutually selected arbitrator.
“ … Each NFL player contract at issue in this case stated it was made under and governed by Missouri law and contained a clause governing the resolution of disputes concerning workers’ compensation claims, as follows:
“Jurisdiction of all workers’ compensation claims and all matters related to workers’ compensation . . . shall be exclusively determined by and exclusively decided in accordance with the internal laws of the state of Missouri . . . without resort to choice of law rules. In addition, player agrees that the contract calls for performance in Jackson County, Missouri, and jurisdiction and venue for any and all workers’ compensation disputes shall lie exclusively in the State Courts of Jackson County, Missouri.”
The affected players in the case are Scott Connot, Donald Edwards, Jr., Taje Allen, Rocky Boiman, J.R. Niklos, Eric Warfield, Greg Wesley, R-Kal Truluck, Morten Andersen, Shaunard Harts, Patrick Surtain, Gary Stills, Jerome Woods, Damion McIntosh, William Bartee, and Steve Williams. At various times from 2009 through 2011, they “filed cumulative injury claims with the California Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board, each alleging injuries sustained at least in part while playing NFL games in California.”
Meanwhile, the NFLMC responded with grievances against the players, claiming each application for workers’ compensation benefits in California violated the choice-of-law and/or choice-of-forum provisions of each player’s NFL player contract with the Chiefs.
On September 22, 2011, the grievances against the Players were cumulatively submitted to Arbitrator Michael H. Beck. On February 23, 2012, Beck ruled for the Chiefs and NFLMC, holding that he was “bound by the CBA’s terms and three earlier arbitration decisions rejecting nearly identical challenges to the choice-of-law and/or choice-of-forum provision.”
Shortly thereafter, the plaintiffs sought “to confirm and enforce the Arbitration Award pursuant to § 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C § 185, et seq., while the defendants moved to vacate the award.”
The defendants argued that the court should vacate the award because “the choice-of-law and/or choice-of-forum provision of the CBA … renders the NFL player contracts against public policy because they operate as a waiver to the players’ rights to pursue workers’ compensation in states other than Missouri.”
In reviewing the arguments, the district judge revisited the arbitrator’s comment that the question of public policy “is wholly independent from the collective bargaining agreement and is ultimately one for the courts. . . .”
Furthermore, the judge wrote that “the standard for vacating an arbitration award on public policy grounds is high: defendants must demonstrate that the award is contrary to ‘well defined and dominant’ public policy, which must be ‘ascertained by reference to the laws and legal precedents and not from general considerations of supposed public interests.’” Chicago Bears Football Club, Inc. v. Haynes, 816 F. Supp. 2d 534, 537 (N.D. Ill. 2011).
The defendants’ other arguments centered “on the principle that the NFL player contracts at issue are contrary to public policy because they contain provisions that interfere with California’s sovereign right to determine what compensation to provide for workplace injuries that occur within its borders.”
The judge noted that both parties agree that “Missouri law governs the CBA which includes the NFL player contracts. Further, parties do not contest the Chiefs are located in Missouri and that as a result, the players performed the majority of their obligations under the CBA in Missouri. Finally, the parties do not dispute that the parties negotiated a choice-of-law and/or choice-of-forum provision requiring resolution of disputes in Missouri. The court therefore finds Missouri has a substantial relationship to the parties and to the contracts at issue and California does not have a materially greater interest than Missouri in this matter. As a result, the court finds the public policy of California is not relevant to the court’s inquiry.”
The judge focused primarily on Matthews v. Nat’l Football League Mgmt. Council, 688 F.3d 1107, 1112 (9th Cir. 2012) in which the court held that Matthews “did not allege sufficient contacts with California to show his workers’ compensation claim for cumulative injuries fell within the WCAB’s jurisdiction because he did not allege injury causing disability or the need for medical treatment in California.
“The Court finds none of the Players have met this burden. As in Matthews, none of the players here have established enforcement of the award violates an explicit, well-defined, and dominant California public policy by prohibiting them from pursuing workers’ compensation benefits in California.”
Kansas City Chiefs Football Club, INC., et al., v. Taje Allen, et al.; W.D. Mo.;
Case No. 4:12-CV-00238-BCW, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 46424; 3/30/13
Attorneys of Record: (for plaintiffs) Daniel N. Allmayer, Lloyd W Raber, LEAD ATTORNEYS, Allmayer & Associates, P.C., Kansas City, MO; Daniel L. Nash, PRO HAC VICE, Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, LLP-DC, Washington, DC; L. Rachel Lerman, Rex S. Heinke, PRO HAC VICE, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, Los Angeles, CA. (for defendants) Adam J Kaiser, LEAD ATTORNEY, PRO HAC VICE, Winston & Shrawn LLP, New York, NY; Brian Baggott, Harvey Lee Kaplan, LEAD ATTORNEYS, Shook, Hardy & Bacon, LLP-KCMO, Kansas City, MO; David G Feher, Jeffrey L Kessler, LEAD ATTORNEYS, PRO HAC VICE, New York, NY; Jeffrey H Newhouse, LEAD ATTORNEY, PRO HAC VICE, Winston & Strawn LLP, New York, NY.
