Andy Oliver and the NCAA have settled

Per Keith Law, Andy Oliver has settled with the NCAA :

Andy Oliver, the former Oklahoma State Univ. pitcher who won a court decision earlier this year voiding the NCAA’s regulation prohibiting student athletes from having an attorney make direct contact with a pro sports team, has settled his case against the NCAA, two weeks before it was to go to a jury trial. “I can confirm there is a settlement and that it is confidential,” Oliver’s attorney, Rick Johnson, said late yesterday. He declined to comment further.

I’ve been forwarded the settlement agreement — or at least the notice of settlement which outlines the major terms — and basically the NCAA is giving Oliver $750,000, and the court is going to vacate the Feburay order in which it invalidated the NCAA’s no-representatives rule.

I think — and since I lose all my cases and never settle, I do not know for sure — that vacating that order allows the NCAA to reinstitute its no-reps rule. Which would probably be stupid on their part because it’s not like the groundwork hasn’t been laid for another plaintiff to come in and make the same case. But if the order is vacated, the order is vacated. The NCAA is rather stupid. My bet is that they learn absolutely nothing from this process.

As for Oliver: seeing this case through to the end probably could have done a lot of good in beating the crap out of the odious NCAA, but at the end of the day, $750,000 ain’t hay for a minor leaguer.


9 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
YX
14 years ago

I would def root for NCAA to put the rule back. It would be extremely entertaining just to see about 1000 people get an agent in hope of a quick buck.

Rob²
14 years ago

My guess is that the NCAA will put the rule back in place after scrubbing it through a set of lawyers who will use this case for reference.

Andy H.
14 years ago

“I can confirm there is a settlement and that it is confidential,” Oliver’s attorney, Rick Johnson, said late yesterday.”

“I’ve been forwarded the settlement agreement”

Not confidential anymore I guess? Was confidentiality one of the terms?

After the issues with disclosure of the names on the drug-test list, how do you feel about having a copy of the confidential agreement?  (Not the same, I admit, since the test results were under a court order)

Craig Calcaterra
14 years ago

I didn’t see the actual settlement agreement. I saw an outline of the settlement agreement that was a public court document. It actually referred to the fact that the terms in the outline will later be reduced to an actual agreement, in which the parties may or may not choose to insert confidentiality language.  The document I saw did, however, have the $750K and vacate-the-order terms.

Aaron Moreno
14 years ago

I love it when someone does the heavy lifting for you.

Can’t knock the kid. 500K is worth more to him than becoming a Keycite, as it would probably be to most of us.

Kevin S.
14 years ago

Wait, Craig, how can the settlement of a civil lawsuit result in the vacating of a judicial ruling of something being illegal?

Craig Calcaterra
14 years ago

It was only a preliminary order, not a final order. It found, in essence, that if the case were to go to trial, the plainiff (Oliver) was likely to be successful on the merits, and thus the rule was enjoined and the NCAA prevented from enforcing it while the case was pending.  Because there was never a full-blown ruling on the merits, the PI, and the order granting it, went away.

Kevin S.
14 years ago

Ah, I see.

But, like you said, it’s laid the groundwork for someone else to come through and challenge it.  How strong would the preliminary order be considered as a precedent, or would it just be that the logical path is laid out (and yes, I know that sentence is a grammatical abomination – it’s late).

Craig Calcaterra
14 years ago

Technically speaking, it carries no value as precedent. A court that based it’s decision by a citation to the ruling would be committing reversible error. The ruling has been vacated. For all technical purposes, it ceases to be.

But practically speaking, everyone knows about it, can find it online, and knows the legal grounds on which it was based. If a plaintiff wanted to challenge the law again, they’d simply need to track the same arguments and hope they get a judge who thinks like Judge Tone here in Ohio.  They could probably allude to the case somehow—footnote? Maybe someone is ballsy enough to actually cite it in a brief, knowing it’s been vacated?—and get where they need to be because of it.