Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-92-01022/USCOURTS-ca10-92-01022-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Thomas M. Collins
Appellant
Charles Grantham
Appellee
National Basketball Players Association
Appellee

Document Text:

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

·. ,._:" 

,- · . ,t: ·, 

SEP 2 t 1992 

ROBM;RT L. HOEC~.:.;.:.., 

THOMAS M. COLLINS, Clerk 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

NATIONAL BASKETBALL PLAYERS 

CHARLES GRANTHAM, 

Defendants-Appellees. 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

) 

ASSOCIATION; ) 

) 

) 

) 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

No. 92-1022 

(D.C. No. 91-M-706) 

(D. Colo.) 

Before MOORE, TACHA., and BRORBY, Circuit Judges. 

After examining the briefs and appellate record, this 

panel has determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. 

App. P. 34(a); 10th Cir. R. 34.1.9. The case is therefore ordered 

submitted without oral argument. 

Plaintiff-appellant Thomas Collins appeals a summary judgment 

order in favor of defendants-appellees National Basketball Players 

Association (NBPA) and Charles Grantham. On appeal, Collins 

contends that the district court misapplied the labor exemption to 

the antitrust laws. Collins further contends that the district 

court erred by granting summary judgment while there remain 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall 

not be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, except for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of the 

case, res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 36.3. 

Appellate Case: 92-1022 Document: 010110353482 Date Filed: 09/21/1992 Page: 1
genuine disputes of material fact relating to the issues of waiver 

and estoppel. After reviewing the district court's opinion and 

the parties' briefs, we affirm. 

On appeal, we review the grant of summary judgment de nova, 

using the same standards the district court applies. Osgood v. 

State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 848 F.2d 141, 143 (10th Cir. 

1988). Summary judgment is appropriate "if the pleadings, 

depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, 

together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no 

genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is 

entitled to a judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 

56(c); see Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 247-48 

(1986). An issue of material fact is "genuine" if a reasonable 

jury could render a verdict for the nonmoving party. Liberty 

Lobby, 477 U.S. at 249; Deepwater Invests., Ltd. v. Jackson Hole 

Ski Corp., 938 F.2d 1105, 1113 (10th Cir. 1991). When deciding 

whether an issue of material fact is genuine, we must accept all 

evidence and all reasonable inferences derived from that evidence 

in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Applied 

Genetics Int'l, Inc. v. First Affiliated Sec., Inc., 912 F.2d 

1238, 1241 (10th Cir. 1990). 

The underlying material facts in this case are not in dispute 

and are set out in the district court's opinion. In summary, the 

NBPA is a labor union that the National Basketball Association 

(NBA) has recognized for over thirty years as the exclusive 

bargaining representative for all NBA players, pursuant to section 

nine of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. § 159. For 

-2-

Appellate Case: 92-1022 Document: 010110353482 Date Filed: 09/21/1992 Page: 2
over twenty years, the NBPA and the NBA have entered into 

collective bargaining agreements establishing the minimum salary 

an individual player must be paid, the maximum aggregate salary a 

team may pay all of its players, and other issues unique to 

professional sports. The NBPA, however, has always authorized the 

players or their individually selected agents to negotiate their 

individual compensation packages within the framework established 

by the collective bargaining agreements. 

Player agents were unregulated before 1986. But in that 

year, in response to a growing number of player complaints about 

agent abuses -- including violations of various fiduciary duties 

-- the NBPA established the Regulations, a comprehensive system 

of agent certification. The Regulations permit only certified 

agents to represent NBPA members. The Regulations also establish 

the Committee, which is authorized to issue or deny certification 

of prospective player agents . The Committee may deny 

certification if it determines that the prospective agent has made 

a false statement of material fact in his application or that he 

has engaged in any conduct that significantly impacts on his 

credibility, integrity, or competence to serve in a fiduciary 

capacity. Any prospective agent whose application for 

certification is denied may appeal by filing a timely demand for 

final and binding arbitration. 

Collins had been a player agent representing NBPA members 

since 1974. The Committee certified Collins as a player agent in 

1986, the year the Regulations first took effect. However, 

Collins voluntarily suspended his activities as an agent during 

-3-

Appellate Case: 92-1022 Document: 010110353482 Date Filed: 09/21/1992 Page: 3
the pendency of a lawsuit filed by one of his clients, Kareem 

Abdul-Jabbar, and a corporation Abdul-Jabbar had established, Ain 

Jeem, Inc. Abdul-Jabbar alleged that Collins had breached a 

number of fiduciary duties when Collins mishandled Abdul-Jabbar's 

income tax returns, improvidently invested his money, mishandled 

his assets, and transferred funds from his accounts to the 

accounts of other players represented by Collins. The Ain Jeem 

lawsuit was settled in 1989, but in the interim the Committee had 

decertified Collins for violations of other regulations. 

Collins reapplied for certification in 1990, and the 

Committee commenced an informal investigation into Collins' 

application. The Committee took testimony from both Collins and 

Abdul-Jabbar, and was provided with nonconfidential discovery 

material from the Ain Jeem suit. The Committee denied Collins' 

application because it found that Collins was unfit to serve in a 

fiduciary capacity on behalf of NBA players and that he had made 

false or misleading statements to the Committee during the 

investigation. It reached this conclusion after it found 

substantially all of Abdul-Jabbar's allegations to be true. The 

Committee informed Collins of his right to final and binding 

arbitration, but Collins did not demand arbitration and instead 

filed this lawsuit. 

Before the district court, Collins claimed that the NBPA 

certification process violates the antitrust laws because it 

amounts to a group boycott. We agree with the district court's 

analysis of the labor and antitrust statutes and its conclusion 

that the statutory labor exemption from the Sherman Act permits 

-4-

Appellate Case: 92-1022 Document: 010110353482 Date Filed: 09/21/1992 Page: 4
the NBPA to establish a certification procedure for player agents. 

Specifically, we hold that the Regulations meet both prongs of the 

test established in United States v. Hutcheson, 312 U.S. 219 

(1941), in which the Supreme Court held that labor unions acting 

in their self-interest and not in combination with nonlabor groups 

are statutorily exempt from Sherman Act liability. Id. at 232. 

On appeal, Collins now acknowledges that the NBPA has the 

statutory authority to establish player agent regulations. But he 

maintains his attack on the Committee's decision to deny his 

certification because it was based in part on its finding that he 

had breached his fiduciary duty as an investment agent and money 

manager. He argues that his conduct outside of negotiations 

between players and their teams is not a legitimate interest of 

the union because it has no bearing on the union's interest in the 

wage scale and working conditions of its members. 

The district court properly rejected this argument. The NBPA 

established the Regulations to deal with agent abuses, including 

agents' violations of their fiduciary duties as labor negotiators. 

It was entirely fair for the Committee to conclude that a man who 

had neglected his fiduciary duties as an investment agent and 

money manager could not be trusted to fulfill his fiduciary duties 

as a negotiator. The integrity of a prospective negotiating agent 

is well within the NBPA's legitimate interest in maintaining the 

wage scale and working conditions of its members. 

Collins next contends that the district court erred in 

granting summ:ary judgment because there still exists a genuine 

dispute over whether the NBPA intended to waive its statutory 

-5-

Appellate Case: 92-1022 Document: 010110353482 Date Filed: 09/21/1992 Page: 5
right to act as the exclusive bargaining agent of the NBA players. 

He argues that the fact that the NBPA permitted agents to 

negotiate individual salaries for over twenty years reasonably 

implies that the union intended to waive its exclusive right to 

bargain, and thereby waived its statutory exemption to the Sherman 

Act. 

The district court was not in error because there is no 

genuine dispute over the NBPA's intent regarding its statutory 

exemption. "'[W]aiver is the intentional relinquishment of a 

known right.'" In re Sweet, 954 F.2d 610, 613 (10th Cir. 1992) 

(quoting In re Garfinkle, 672 F.2d 1340, 1347 (11th Cir. 1982)). 

A waiver of a right provided to a union by the labor statutes must 

be clear and unmistakable. Metropolitan Edison Co. v. NLRB, 460 

U.S. 693, 708-09 (1983). Collins has presented no evidence that 

the NBPA intended to waive its right other than the fact that the 

union did not seek to regulate player agents until the abuses came 

to its attention in the mid-1980s. Because no jury could 

reasonably infer from this fact that the NBPA clearly and 

unmistakably intended to waive its exclusive right to bargain on 

behalf of its members, there is no genuine issue of material fact. 

See Liberty Lobby, 477 U.S. at 249-50; Deepwater Invests., 938 

F.2d at 1113. 

Finally, Collins contends that the district court erred in 

granting summary judgment because there still exists a genuine 

dispute over whether the NBPA estopped itself from failing to 

certify Collins as an agent. Collins argues that a reasonable 

jury could conclude that the NBPA's failure either to regulate 

-6-

Appellate Case: 92-1022 Document: 010110353482 Date Filed: 09/21/1992 Page: 6
agents for over twenty years or to inform him that it might 

someday regulate agents induced him to believe that it would never 

regulate agents. 

The district court properly granted summary judgment because 

there is no genuine dispute over the factual elements of estoppel. 

The Tenth Circuit recently reiterated the four traditional 

elements of equitable estoppel: 

(1) the party to be estopped must know the facts; (2) the 

party to be estopped must intend that his conduct will be 

acted upon or must so act that the party asserting the 

estoppel has the right to believe that it was so intended; 

(3) the party asserting the estoppel must be ignorant of the 

true facts; and (4) the party asserting the estoppel must 

rely on the other party's conduct to his injury. 

Penny v. Giuffrida, 897 F.2d 1543, 1545-46 (10th Cir. 1990) 

(citing Che-Li Shen v. INS, 749 F.2d 1469, 1473 (10th Cir. 1984)). 

Collins has not established a genuine dispute over the third 

element because no reasonable jury could conclude that the NBPA 

intended to refrain from ever regulating agents or that Collins 

rightfully believed that the NBPA so intended. 

For these reasons, we AFFIRM the district courts order 

granting summary judgment. The mandate shall issue forthwith. 

-7-

ENTERED FOR THE COURT 

Deanell Reece Tacha 

Circuit Judge 

Appellate Case: 92-1022 Document: 010110353482 Date Filed: 09/21/1992 Page: 7