Tag: Tulane Mardi Gras Sports Law Invitational

by John Muller*

In 2008, federal trial and appellate courts found against the NFL Players Association on the appeal of an arbitrator’s decision on the grounds that the league and policy administrators had breached their fiduciary duties to players. The trial court held that the steroid policy’s strict liability regime precluded any breach of fiduciary duties, and the Eighth Circuit found on appeal that plaintiffs had failed to offer authority under New York law for a public policy encouraging the performance of fiduciary duties. Did the NFL case get it right? In this Contribution, John Muller (’19) argues that to preserve New York’s public policy, courts should set aside the result of arbitration under a collective bargaining agreement on state common law grounds in these breach of fiduciary duty cases.

by Jake Calvert*

Should stadium owners or operators be liable for injuries to spectators caused by foul balls, or is limiting such liability necessary to protect America’s pastime? Jake Calvert (’17) explores this question, based on his experience at the 2016 Tulane Mardi Gras Sports Law Invitational on February 3rd, 2016. Historically, the baseball rule has limited the duty of care game attendees on the grounds that a more typical negligence analysis would force venue owners and teams to take unreasonable precautions. The Contribution ultimately argues that the baseball rule should be supplanted by more modern notions of tort liability, such as comparative fault, that would account for the specific factors of a particular baseball game injury.