Landmark ruling in Minnesota / Williams sisters

Post #1 » by **ReasonablySober** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 4:31 am

From what I gather, Minnesota state law states that an employer cannot punish an employee if the employee takes a legal substance outside of work hours. This takes a massive bite out of any banned substance list in the major sports.

My guess is this goes to the Supreme Court and any sports fan should be very interested in seeing how this shapes out.

Mags FTW · Post #2 » by **Mags FTW** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 4:35 am

This also goes beyond sports. There are some private companies who for insurance reasons do not allow their employees to smoke and test for it.
http://hr.blr.com/news.aspx?id=10761

Post #3 » by **humanrefutation** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 10:03 am

This really is a matter of the fact the the Fed Appeals Court backed the District Court, which asked for two state laws to be sent back to Minnesota state court for deliberation. The fact is, the result of this decision won't have an immediate fact on the entirety of the NFL suspensions, because it really is a Minnesota state law issue. With this ruling in Federal Court, it basically means that the Williams can sue the NFL in STATE court under STATE laws, rather than the Federal labor laws that the NFL wanted to go by. The Williams wanted that because the Minnesota drug testing laws are a lot more strict about when/where they can test than they are in Federal law, which works in the Williams' favor.

The long term affect on sports is that professional sports leagues may now have to worry about players suing teams in state courts for drug testing issues which thus eliminates the leagues ability to have consistent, uniform drug testing laws. That's why the MLB, NBA, and NHL filed amicus briefs on behalf of the NFL.

What'll be interesting is if this goes to the US Supreme Court, because if they rule in favor of the Williams, that basically devastates the ability to have a uniform CBA.