morning ladies and gentlemen our st case for argument this morning is black berry sports group against the amateur i q association r this is primarily in any trust case but we are before the court on a jurisdictional question only it's whether we have article standing article three stan pursue our claim it's a narrow issue of whether we have injury in fact as articulated in straightforward your honor because we have alleged a financial loss which can be remedied by a favorable to school system the financial loss is our injuries that at this stage we're looking at our complaint we are complaint a the follow up that is critical and the russians somewhat different jurisdictional question or concern why is this case in federal rather than state court this looks like a dispute about terms of a private associations membership group and it doesn't look like there's diversity of citizenship you are you are correct that is not the st year for citizenship but we before the court on a federal question you assert a federal claim votes completely frivolous federal claims do not create federal jurisdiction this claim as i understand it is that the amateur hockey association is a cartel and your client wants a federal court order the cartel to admit it as a member now i have never seen and i trust small used to a just cartel membership and i trust law can be used to disestablish cartels but you don't want an injunction preventing the amateur hockey association from existing your honor respectfully the merits as you know are not before the court this is a question of subject matter jurisdiction i'm raising but your honor there is precedent holding that section two does apply to a mature hockey associations like defendant here that was cited for the district court is there any basis for a claim that and i trust law can be used to force a cartel to admit another member your honor i would the pose the question of i searched for that i couldn't find any your honor i i'm not aware of that authority but that is not a so the interest issue here right they have asserted a monopoly over amateur use hop right if we could have a club you characterize them as a cartel that's f and what federal courts do with cartels use order their abolition and impose penalties they do not adjudicate disputes about who can be members of the car while they do prevent them from having economic effects or adverse economic effects on the marketplace and the issue here is that they have a monopoly over damage to youth hockey that's the allegation now if that's the allegation there any any at all for the proposition that and i trust law can be used to force a cartel to admit another member have not aware that authority but i disagree with your proposition that that's the say what we are seeking that would be a proper remedy so as to have a club no it would not be a proper remedy but there are there are multiple circuits that have held that it's not a proper remedy there is the supreme court which has held that only and i trust injury supports relief and your clients claim complain about injury to a producer not about injury are all sorts of problems in this case and some of them are properly characterized as jurisdictional what your honor we have alleged injury to consumers if we characterize if you are not a consumer we anymore bob you're on to your question about injury to the marketplace if there was an additional producer as we've alleged and complain if there's additional club prices would go down we honor the extent of the question that is before the court we have alleged and we must assume for this purposes that we have shown causation and lost from their conduct both on the trust front and with respect to t and that under this court's precedent is that financial loss is enough or article you stand whatever in that i trust the argument that you have to apply to a cartel for membership and get turned down and only then bring in at i trust claim is well is there any support for that anywhere i think there is your honor and i think it's not an antitrust specific doctrine but if you read there are many doctrines that are not and i trust specific one reason it's not and i trust specific is it that i trust law doesn't regulate cartel membership i agree your honor i  the the position that we did we did it vance in the district court and in our brief here i think does have some support in for example it has nothing to do with standing right the argument you are making which might be a good argument  yet standing to challenge its future denial of that exemption the court discuss the supreme court's decision in the fuselage case which is pretty much exactly that an african american man wanted to apply for membership in an all white private organization nothing to do with that a trustful well your honor i don't understand as i said to your colleague why this is an antitrust case in federal court rather than a contract case the ten circuits opinion in four corners to follow g which i think then judge gorsuch wrote for the court which says the exactly what your honor said to my friend on the other side that you cannot use antitrust law to complain that a cartel should be expanded by one and you should be the one who can also reap the same amount runs and to the extent that their subject matter jurisdiction in federal court is premised on that being a substantial federal claim i agree that it is not i do think there is additionally if for example you read the supreme court's decision in lieu han in part three a which does speak for the court footnote to this is what justice scalia says for the court about the imminence requirement in article three he says it is stretched beyond its breaking point where the plaintiff alleges only an injury at some indefinite future time and the acts necessary to make the injury happen are at least partly within the plaintiff's own control in such circumstances we have insisted that the injury proceed with a high degree of immediacy i do think that that describes this case it would describe this case whatever the cause of action that they purported to allege in the complaint might be where they were antitrust law or any other kind of law including the law of clubs if it were diversity case or or something else that is i think the right to diversity case i  agree or i might the point i was making is that if there were diversity jurisdiction over a claim under the illinois law clubs for example the defendant the plaintiff would still have to show that they satisfied article three zenger in fact requirement  course she in federal court illinois can have whatever requirements it wants completely this case having been filed in federal court the plaintiff is still subject to luan freedom from religion foundation moose lodge trump and all kinds of cases which say that whatever the cause of action if what you're complaining about is that i have an application sitting on my desk too for membership in an organization or for benefit or an exemption and i believe that it will be denied by the defendant i you have to apply to the state's public utilities commission and get its decision as a condition of federal jurisdiction the supreme court describes it as a discretionary done what your  honor i don't think that that is an article three doctrine i agree with you i think that in pullman cases there is you just seems to be however a poor one claim at the level of a private organization i don't think that would be this case could be described as any different than moose lodge in that respect in that case the private organizations rules said two things one only caucasians could be members and two members of guests had to be caucasian the district court granted relief to a plentiful black man who had not applied for membership but who had been denied access as a guest the court held that he had no standing to challenge the rule about membership because he hadn't applied for it but he did have standing to challenge the  rule because he had been denied access as a guest of an actual member that had a case there arose under rect appeal and it is good law this court described it in freedom from religion foundation and explain that i article three proposition for which there really was no futility exception so i agree with your honor that there may be cases in which that set of facts is not squarely presented that me where there may be an injury in fact of some kind of that yet some non jurisdictional non constitutionally jurisdictional doctrine of abstention or deference to state courts may yet be applicable but under most logic and freedom from religion foundation and t situation where a plaintiff's complaint is that an application is going to be denied is not one of them unless he files that application for the reason that whether the events necessary to make his injury happen at all are partly within his own what's the court has other questions about the remaining issues which i think are adequately described in the briefs at the only point i wanted to make about our friends challenge my friends challenge to the district courts denial of leave to amend the complaint because i wanted to point the court to page ten of the district court's opinion in which the judge the district judge quotes paragraph fifty nine dollars of their original complaint which says substantially the same thing that is that their proposed amendment language would allege if you read paragraph start footnote ten on page seven of their opposition to the motion to dismiss the only place in which the pla leave to amend and suggests what that new amended complaint would include that was not already in the original complaint but they say is that someone will be able to police they will plead that a person on a heist here to committee told hi i'm sorry the amateur hockey as you would use real words and that would help us in general i'm happy to do so i'm i apologize i mean the defendant the amateur hockey association of illinois the point i was making is that are their requests for leave to amanda's review for abuse of discretion and the substance of their request was both thin and duplicative of what they had both already pled and that the district court's opinion says he accepted as true but simply and your honor there is precedent for that we decided to district court to see in the in the record there's that minnesota made hockey which found section two to two apply i'm not asking whether section to apply to a particular group i'm asking whether found any such thing maybe before you filed this suit you looked and did find such a thing and if so this would be a good time to let us know where you are and we also politically claim for damages you say also right i take it that means you didn't find any such authority either well your honor i think the claim that the injunctive issue is that it's an opposition over amateur youth hockey right if we could have a club that was not a high club and participat defendant they have a monopoly over amateur youth hockey a remedy and the issue is they run that one awfully we want a bigger share of the cartel profits is no better than we want to be admitted to the cartel what federal courts do with cartels is disestablished not regulate their membership or divvy up their profits understood your honor but one remedy which i believe would fit would be allowed to allow the members of the cartel to play our club and currently the cartel does not allow that right so we don't nestle want membership we just want to