r/CFB • u/Fonzie5 UCF Knights • Big 12 • 18h ago

News [On3] BREAKING: The SEC has filed a lawsuit against LSU and head football coach Lane Kiffin, @PeteNakos reports.

https://x.com/on3/status/2095555292859646137?s=46&t=FavtrbPsHpJY8Odvh2TYUA
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u/surreptitioussloth Virginia Cavaliers • Florida Gators 17h ago

It’s different because it doesn’t even make sense as a lawsuit

What relief are they really asking for against lsu/kiffin? They aren’t bringing the lawsuit and do not have the power to stop it

If the state court finds the ncaa/sec rules are unlawful, whatever this lawsuit is trying to do wouldn’t get in the way of that

I’ve pursued novel legal theories, but this is just not based on legal reality as far as I can tell

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u/BoldElDavo Virginia Cavaliers 17h ago

It could make sense as a lawsuit. They're saying the conference has a purpose and mission, and LSU (a state entity) is compelling them to associate with conduct contrary to it.

I guess the mission is amateur athletics and the conduct contrary is hiring professional athletes, in a nutshell. The relief would be barring LSU/Kiffin from hiring professional athletes.

I don't buy it even a little bit as an argument, but if they can somehow win on the NCAA/SEC rule being speech protected by the Constitution, that would defeat the other lawsuit.

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u/surreptitioussloth Virginia Cavaliers • Florida Gators 16h ago

Yeah, that’s the best argument they can make but when the actual harm is coming from lawsuits from players, claiming that their success there is state retaliation is a huge stretch

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u/BoldElDavo Virginia Cavaliers 15h ago

Right, but the players aren't state actors. LSU and its employees are.

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u/surreptitioussloth Virginia Cavaliers • Florida Gators 15h ago

But assuming the SEC gets an injunction against LSU for, what, continuing to encourage players to file lawsuits?

That still leaves them facing potential orders requiring them to let the players play and not punish the schools rostering them

It’s just weird

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u/BoldElDavo Virginia Cavaliers 15h ago

The injunction would be stopping LSU from rostering the players, surely.

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u/DuvalHeart UCF Knights 15h ago

Even if we leave out the amateur athletics portion an organization has the right to determine who can be a member and to apply its own rules (unless said membership requirements and rules run afoul of anti-discrimination laws).

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u/SituationSoap Michigan Wolverines 14h ago

has the right to determine who can be a member and to apply its own rules

This is true insofar as those rules don't violate the law. But the bigger thing here is...even if we accept this as a basis for the argument, that doesn't warrant a lawsuit. If the argument is "you keep bringing in people we don't want to associate with," then the response is "OK, kick them out" not "Sue them in Federal court to do...something about it"

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u/DuvalHeart UCF Knights 14h ago

I think their argument is that LSU is specifically searching for players to justify a lawsuit to force the issue in a way that benefits themself rather than the players.

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u/SituationSoap Michigan Wolverines 14h ago

That's not relevant to what I wrote, though.

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u/BoldElDavo Virginia Cavaliers 15h ago

The NCAA has been arguing that unsuccessfully for years.

Organizations do not have the right to act monopolistically in restricting a labor market. These players are getting paid now, so they are a labor market.

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u/DuvalHeart UCF Knights 14h ago

The NCAA is violating anti-trust provisions because it is an organization of competitors (the leagues) acting in collusion.

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u/BoldElDavo Virginia Cavaliers 14h ago

Quick, now tell me the conference is not an organization of competitors (the schools).

And tell me those schools aren't members of the NCAA.

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u/DuvalHeart UCF Knights 14h ago

While the universities are competitors in an athletic sense, they are not competitors in the marketplace since they don't determine the pay of the players.

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u/JX_JR Stanford Cardinal 10h ago

What are you talking about? The universities 100% determine the pay of the players and compete for their services. Players are signing revenue sharing agreements directly with the university.

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u/Ion_bound Georgia Tech • Georgia Southern 17h ago

They're saying that they want to kick LSU out of the SEC, sounds like, and that they have the constitutional right to do so. Not sure why this would stop LSU from playing on Sunday but I can see wanting to essentially get a declaratory judgment/anti-suit injunction in a non-LA court before trying to boot LSU.

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u/SituationSoap Michigan Wolverines 14h ago

They're saying that they want to kick LSU out of the SEC, sounds like, and that they have the constitutional right to do so.

That argument doesn't require a lawsuit, though?

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u/Ion_bound Georgia Tech • Georgia Southern 14h ago

No, but LSU will sue if they do that to try to stay in. So by filing a lawsuit first in the Northern District of Alabama asking permission to kick LSU out, instead of letting LSU file in Louisiana asking to be let back in, they get to pick a battlefield with a less biased (and/or biased in their favor) judge.

It's genuinely good legal strategy, clearly the SEC has better lawyers than the NCAA.

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u/SituationSoap Michigan Wolverines 14h ago

No, but LSU will sue if they do that to try to stay in.

I mean that's just table stakes.

So by filing a lawsuit first in the Northern District of Alabama asking permission to kick LSU out

But that is not what they're seeking in this lawsuit?

It's genuinely good legal strategy

It is?

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u/Ion_bound Georgia Tech • Georgia Southern 14h ago

But that is not what they're seeking in this lawsuit?

According to One3, they want the Court to “enter a preliminary and permanent injunction prohibiting Defendants from violating the Conference’s First Amendment rights by compelling the Conference to associate with conduct that is contrary to the Conference’s purpose and mission.” That's legalese for 'Prevent them from saying we can't kick them out for breaking the rules'.

It is?

Oh yeah. Forum selection is huge and can be outcome determinative, not just in terms of judge-shopping (though that is a factor) but also in terms of choice of law. And Louisiana Civil Law is a byzantine nightmare unless you want to law school at LSU or Tulane because it's based on the Napoleonic Code instead of Anglo-American law.

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u/SituationSoap Michigan Wolverines 14h ago

That's legalese for 'Prevent them from saying we can't kick them out for breaking the rules'.

I'm not a lawyer, but this seems explicitly wrong. As far as I can tell, literally nobody has said that the SEC can't kick LSU out for breaking the rules except the courts, which makes sense because the courts routinely take a very poor view of litigants punishing someone for doing something the courts say is legal.

Forum selection is huge and can be outcome determinative, not just in terms of judge-shopping (though that is a factor) but also in terms of choice of law

OK, but the rulings against the NCAA and SEC have come from across the country, which suggests that the type of law we're dealing with at this point isn't specific to Louisiana.

But more specifically, I wasn't talking about forum shopping. I'm talking about the idea that filing what appears to be a batshit lawsuit against the university and Lane Kiffin for engaging in a conspiracy to do something that isn't illegal is a brilliant legal strategy.