Three D1 Refs Suing NCAA & Alliance Affiliated Leagues

[crosscountry55]

I just don’t see how they have standing to sue as independent contractors.

Let’s say every year I have me fence painted (I really love my fence). For the past ten years, I hired the same painter. This year, I hired someone else. Same price, but just felt like I wanted to try something new. So what, do I now have to legally justify the whims with which I hire my independent contract painters? Of course not.

This is no different. Frivolous lawsuit.

Edit: After 989’s update post, I see the bigger picture. Looks like they’re going to make their case on similar grounds to the PIAA lacrosse thing a few years back. Who knows, maybe they’ll get somewhere.

There is no doubt that the concept of “independent contractor” is often stretched to its limits with sports officials.

[Player989random]

Originally Posted by crosscountry55

Edit: After 989’s update post, I see the bigger picture. Looks like they’re going to make their case on similar grounds to the PIAA lacrosse thing a few years back. Who knows, maybe they’ll get somewhere.

There is no doubt that the concept of “independent contractor” is often stretched to its limits with sports officials.

https://www.nfhs.org/articles/court-...t-contractors/

The PIAA won because while they have oversight of PA athletics, they didn't actually control the refs. The argument of this suit appears to be that the NCAA controls the conferences, and thus indirectly influences the hiring practices of the officials for these conferences.

The other deciding factors for the PIAA were that officials had discretion in apply the rules, contract/bylaw language, and that most officials were part-time.

When this issue arose last time, I believed that if anyone challenged an assignor/NCAA in court, we could see a different result. It's hard to say that we aren't officiating full time when we have a season from November to April (well, some of them), and then have camps/pre-season training from April to September. The NCAA hires a "National Coordinator" of officials, who has to be a salary guy, yet somehow they have a coordinator who coordinates a staff of whom?

We get videos once every other week which tell us how to do our jobs, we get e-mails telling us how to do our jobs, and we have to attend training to be told how to do our jobs, yet somehow we still meet the requirements for independent contractors?

That being said, I'm not a lawyer. I mostly do taxes. But after actually reading this, I wish these guys luck.