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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

NFL players urge appellate court to lift league’s lockout

Jim Suhr Associated Press

ST. LOUIS – NFL players urged a federal appeals court Friday to declare the lockout illegal, saying the league had no right to impose a work stoppage that is approaching three months with no sign of a deal that will save the 2011 season.

In a courtroom packed with some 200 people, including out-of-work players and retirees on folding chairs brought in to handle the crowd, attorneys on both sides of the bitter labor fight got roughly 30 minutes each to make their cases.

The appeal centers on the lockout that began hours after months of labor talks fell apart March 11, the players’ union dissolved and the fight ended up in federal court. The NFL contends the union decertification was a sham meant to gain leverage in the talks and the conflict remains subject to labor law.

The players argue that antitrust laws apply and the lockout put in place under labor law needs to be put on hold, as it was in April by U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson in Minnesota.

“We’re asking for a preliminary injunction for a short period of time,” the players’ counsel, Theodore Olson, said in the hushed courtroom. “We’re simply asking that the laws of the U.S. be respected.”

The arguments came before a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, whose two earlier 2-1 decisions have sided with the league and upheld the lockout. The panel took the arguments under advisement with one judge, Kermit Bye, saying only that a ruling would come in “due course” and he suggested the two sides figure things out.

“We wouldn’t be all that hurt if you go out and settle that case,” Bye said as he closed the 68-minute hearing. “We will keep with our business, and if that ends up with a decision, it’s probably something both sides aren’t going to like.”

The league is starting to see the effects of the lockout, with furloughs and other recent moneysaving steps. Training camps traditionally start in late July and the first preseason game is little more than two months away.

The hearing has been seen as pivotal in the dispute over how to share the NFL’s $9 billion in annual revenue, and the turnout included NFL Players Association leader DeMaurice Smith and two dozen players, including Green Bay’s Cullen Jenkins, the New York Jets’ Tony Richardson and New York Giants standout Osi Umenyiora.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell spent the day in Fort Bragg, N.C., a league spokesman tweeting that Goodell isn’t a lawyer and “wouldn’t have added much to the legal proceedings.” Jets owner Woody Johnson was at the hearing.

Paul Clement, an attorney representing the NFL, waved off a reporter’s question about whether the NFL had the upper hand.

“As we tried to make clear in there, we think the lockout is actually the best way to get players back on the field,” said Clement, who like Olson is a former U.S. solicitor general. “I think people understand that this will be resolved; the resolution will include a collective bargaining agreement. And the fastest way to get there is to get the antitrust laws, which were just a misfit in this context, out of the picture.”

The hearing was sometimes dense as Olson and Clement laid out arguments over Nelson’s April 25 decision to lift the lockout on the grounds that it was illegal and the players suffering irreparable harm. The 8th Circuit – seen as a more conservative, business-friendly venue for the NFL than the federal courts in Minnesota – put her ruling on hold April 29 and reaffirmed its decision May 16.