Senne v. Kan. City Royals Baseball Corp.

934 F.3d 918

Aaron SENNE; Michael Liberto; Oliver Odle; Brad McAtee; Craig Bennigson; Matt Lawson; Kyle Woodruff; Ryan Kiel; Kyle Nicholson; Brad Stone ; Matt Daly; Aaron Meade; Justin Murray; Jake Kahaulelio; Ryan Khoury; Dustin Pease; Jeff Nadeau ; Jon Gaston; Brandon Henderson ; Tim Pahuta; Lee Smith; Joseph Newby; Ryan Hutson ; Matt Frevert; Roberto Ortiz ; Witer Jimenez; Kris Watts; Mitch Hilligoss; Daniel Britt ; Yadel Marti; Helder Velaquez; Jorge Jimenez ; Jorge Minyety; Edwin Maysonet; Jose Diaz; Nick Giarraputo; Lauren Gagnier; Leonard Davis; Gaspar Santiago; Grant Duff ; Omar Aguilar; Mark Wagner; David Quinowski; Brandon Pinckney, Individually and on Behalf of All Those Similarly Situated; Jake Opitz; Brett Newsome, Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.KANSAS CITY ROYALS BASEBALL CORP.; Marlins Teamco LLC; San Francisco Baseball Associates, LLC ; Office of the Commissioner of Baseball, dba Major League Baseball, an unincorporated association; Allan Huber Selig, "Bud"; Angels Baseball LP; St. Louis Cardinals, LLC; Colorado Rockies Baseball Club, Ltd.; Cincinnati Reds, LLC ; Houston Baseball Partners LLC; Athletics Investment Group, LLC; Rogers Blue Jays Baseball Partnership ; Padres L.P.; San Diego Padres Baseball Club, L.P. ; Minnesota Twins, LLC ; Detroit Tigers, Inc.; Los Angeles Dodgers LLC; Sterling Mets L.P.; AZPB L.P.; New York Yankees P’Ship; Rangers Baseball Express, LLC ; Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club, Inc.; Chicago Cubs Baseball Club, LLC ; Pittsburgh Associates, LP; Baseball Club of Seattle, LLP; Los Angeles Dodgers Holding Company LLC; Rangers Baseball, LLC, Defendants-Appellees.

Nos. 17-16245

17-16267

17-16276

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted June 13, 2018 San Francisco, California

Filed August 16, 2019

PAEZ, Circuit Judge:

It is often said that baseball is America’s pastime. In this case, current and former minor league baseball players allege that the American tradition of baseball collides with a tradition far less benign: the exploitation of workers. We are tasked with deciding whether these minor league players may properly bring their wage-and-hour claims on a collective and classwide basis.

BACKGROUND

I.

Most major professional sports in America have their own "farm system" for developing talent: for the National Basketball Association, it’s the G-League; for the National Hockey League, it’s the American Hockey League; and for Major League Baseball (MLB), it’s Minor League Baseball. MLB and its thirty franchise teams rely heavily on this extensive minor league system, which has nearly 200 affiliates across the country and employs approximately 6,000 minor league players. Nearly all MLB players begin their careers in the minor leagues. Each minor league club is associated with one of the thirty franchise MLB teams.

The minor league system is governed by the Major League Rules (MLRs), which dictate the terms of employment and compensation for both minor and major league players. Under the MLRs, all minor league players are required to sign a seven-year Uniform Player Contract (UPC). Ostensibly, players are required to sign the UPC for "morale" and "to produce the similarity of conditions necessary for keen competition."

The UPC "obligates Player[s] to perform professional services on a calendar year basis, regardless of the fact that salary payments are to be made only during the actual championship playing season." It describes its scope as setting "the terms and conditions of employment during all periods in which Player is employed by Club as a Minor League Player." Players are paid by the MLB franchise affiliated with the minor league team for which they play. Under the UPC, first-year players are paid a fixed salary of $1,100 per month during the regular ("championship") season that runs from April through September. In addition to their salaries during the championship season, some players receive signing or performance-related bonuses and college scholarships.

Beginning in early March each year, the minor league affiliates conduct spring training in Arizona and Florida; every MLB franchise operates a minor league training complex in one of these two states. The parties dispute whether spring training is required, but the UPC strongly indicates that it is mandatory.¹ Virtually all players are unpaid during spring training.

Spring training lasts approximately four weeks, until the championship season begins in April. Some players attest that spring training entails working seven days a week, with no days off. During spring training, teams typically have scheduled activities in the morning prior to playing games in the afternoon. For example, a team spring training schedule for one of the San Francisco Giants’ affiliates describes that at 6:30 AM, there was an "Early Van for Treatment and Early Work"² ; at 7:00 AM, the "Regular Van" departed; at 7:45 AM, the "Early Work" began; and then between 9:00 AM and 11:00 AM, the team would perform activities such as "Stretch," "Throwing Program," and "Batting Practice." Lunch was to be at 11:00 AM, before a 12:10 PM bus to a neighboring city for a 1:00 PM away game.

At the conclusion of spring training in early April, some players are assigned to minor league affiliates, and begin playing games in the championship season. During the championship season, minor league teams play games either six or seven days per week. The championship season lasts around five months, beginning in April and ending in September. One of the regular season leagues within minor league baseball is the California League, which—as the name implies—plays games exclusively within California.

Players who are not assigned to play for affiliates in the championship season stay at the Arizona or Florida facilities for "extended spring training." Extended spring training continues until June, and involves similar activities to spring training. Although most players do not get paid during extended spring training, as many as seven MLB clubs do pay for work during extended spring training due to an ambiguity in the MLRs over when players are permitted to be paid.

After the championship season ends in September, some players participate in the "instructional leagues," which run from approximately mid-September to mid-October. The parties dispute whether participation in the instructional leagues is mandatory for the players involved, although as with spring training, the UPC strongly implies that participation is required. Activities and schedules during the instructional league are similar to spring training. And just as with spring training, players are virtually never paid for participation in the instructional league.

II.

Plaintiffs are forty-five current and former minor league baseball players who bring claims under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and the wage-and-hour laws of California, Arizona, and Florida against MLB, MLB Commissioner Bud Selig, and a number³ of MLB franchises. Plaintiffs allege that defendants do not pay the players at all during spring training, extended spring training, or the instructional leagues. They further allege that because players are "employees" and the activities the players perform during those periods constitute compensable work, defendants have unlawfully failed to pay them at least minimum wage. And according to plaintiffs, while the players are paid—albeit not much—during the championship season, they routinely work overtime, for which they are never compensated as a matter of policy.

In May 2015, plaintiffs filed their Second Amended Consolidated Class Action Complaint, which alleged wage-and-hour claims under the laws of eight states and the FLSA; plaintiffs also sought certification of a FLSA collective action. The district court preliminarily certified the FLSA collective in October 2015. Notice was sent to approximately 15,000 current and former minor league players, of which more than 2,200 opted in.

In 2016, defendants moved to decertify the FLSA collective, while plaintiffs moved to certify a Rule 23(b)(2) class as well as Rule 23(b)(3) classes under the laws of eight states. The district court denied certification for all proposed Rule 23(b)(3) classes, concluding that predominance was not satisfied for two primary reasons. Senne v. Kansas City Royals Baseball Corp. , 315 F.R.D. 523, 572, 577–84 (N.D. Cal. 2016). First, the court concluded that predominance was defeated by the choice-of-law issues presented by the proposed classes, given that (1) the winter off-season training claims entailed work performed in dozens of different states with no common schedule or situs; and (2) the championship season claims involved frequent travel between state lines for away games. Id. at 580–81. The district court also determined that the inclusion of claims for winter off-season work fatally undermined predominance, as the court would be required to undertake an overwhelming number of individualized inquiries to determine which activities constituted compensable "work" and how much time was spent doing "work." Id. at 577–84. For similar reasons, the court held that plaintiffs were not "similarly situated" and therefore decertified the FLSA collective. Id. at 585–86. The court also granted the defendants’ motion to exclude an expert survey (the "Pilot Survey") submitted by plaintiffs, finding that its methodology and results did not satisfy the requirements of Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. , 509 U.S. 579, 113 S.Ct. 2786, 125 L.Ed.2d 469 (1993). Id. at 586–90, 113 S.Ct. 2786. The court further refused to certify the proposed Rule 23(b)(2) class, concluding that because the plaintiffs were all former—rather than current—players, they lacked standing to represent a (b)(2) class. Id. at 584–85, 113 S.Ct. 2786.

Plaintiffs moved for reconsideration, narrowing their proposed classes significantly in response to the concerns the district court expressed in its initial...