The UFC Antitrust Lawsuit celebrated its 8th anniversary this month and while lawsuits in combat sports have come and gone in that time span this lawsuit has yet to be issued class certification. While Judge Richard Boulware has indicated that he will grant certification for a portion of the plaintiffs’ claims but waited for a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals case which would have impacted the way courts would look at granting class action certification.
This fall, the Supreme Court of the United States declined to hear the case so that should give Judge Boulware the clearance to issue his ruling.
From our post on the subject this past August:
The issue central to the appeal in Olean Wholesale Grocery Co-Op v. Bumble Bee Foods, LLC (aka the Tuna case) in determining the class participants. The key takeaways from the Ninth Circuit ruling in the Tuna case is that the District Court need only determine whether plaintiffs’ evidence proves that a common question is capable of class-wide resolution and that there is no per se rule preventing certification of a class that includes more than a de minimis number of uninjured class members.
Central to the inquiry as it relates to the UFC Antitrust lawsuit is the fact that the plaintiffs’ expert(s) need not have to prove that all in the class of plaintiffs have been injured. While there may be a nominal number of uninjured class members, the argument by defendants in the Tuna case and by the UFC in the antitrust case is that more than a de minimis number of uninjured class members are a part of the class action litigation. As a result, the UFC would argue that since the experts of the plaintiffs cannot show that all of the presumed class of individuals cannot show the commonality of the injury, that the class cannot be certified. The current ruling from the Ninth Circuit that in determining class certification, the Court does NOT have to show this and only that it is capable of class-wide resolution.
A conference was held this past fall on the case revealing certain items related to UFC contracts but no resolution as to when Judge Boulware would issue his opinion.
In other notable news this year in this lawsuit, the Court without an issued opinion, denied the Motion to Dismiss of Zuffa in the lawsuit filed by former UFC fighters Kajan Johnson and CB Dolloway. Their lawsuit was similar to the original filing and was the Court denie3d the Motion to Dismiss as it did when the company attempted to dismiss the original filing several years prior.
Without an appeal to wait on, Judge Boulware should issue an opinion on granting class certification. From there, one may expect an appeal or two of the ruling. One should hope that the appeal will be submitted for issuance of an opinion by the end of 2023. At some point, the actual merits of the lawsuit will be heard.
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