Moran v. Selig

• Decision Date: 09 May 2006
• Docket Number: No. 04-55647.,04-55647.
• Citation: 447 F.3d 748
• Parties: Richard Alan MORAN; Ernest Fazio, Plaintiffs, and Mike Colbern, individually and on behalf of all similarly situated retired Major League Baseball Players, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Allan H. SELIG, aka "Bud" Selig, as Commissioner of Major League Baseball; New York Yankees Baseball Club, an entity of unknown form; Atlanta Braves, Inc., a Delaware Corporation; Detroit Tigers, Inc., a Michigan Corporation; St. Louis Cardinal Baseball Club, an entity of unknown form; Boston Red Sox Baseball Club, an entity of unknown form; Florida Marlins Baseball Club, an entity of unknown form; Anaheim Angels LP, a California limited partnership; Arizona Diamondbacks Baseball Club, an entity of unknown form; Baltimore Orioles, Inc., a Maryland Corporation; Chicago Cubs, Inc., an Illinois Corporation; Chicago White Sox Baseball Club, an entity of unknown form; Cincinnati Reds Baseball Club, an entity of unknown form; Cleveland Indians Baseball Company, Inc., an Ohio Corporation; Colorado Rockies Baseball Club, an entity of unknown form; Houston Astros Baseball Club, an entity of unknown form; Kansas City Royals Baseball Corporation, a Missouri Corporation; Los Angeles Dodgers, Inc., a Delaware Corporation; Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club, Inc., a Wisconsin Corporation; Minnesota Twins Baseball Club, an entity of unknown form; Montreal Expos Baseball Club, an entity of unknown form; New York Mets Baseball Club, an entity of unknown form; The Phillies, a Pennsylvania limited Partnership; Pittsburgh Pirates, Inc., a Pennsylvania Corporation; San Diego Padres Baseball Club, an entity of unknown form; San Francisco Giants Enterprises LLC, a Delaware limited liability company; Seattle Mariners Baseball Club, an entity of unknown form; Tampa Bay Devil Rays Baseball Club, an entity of unknown form; Texas Rangers Baseball Club, an entity of unknown form; Oakland Athletics Limited Partnership, a Delaware Limited Partnership; Toronto Blue Jays Baseball Club, an entity of unknown form, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

447 F.3d 748

Richard Alan MORAN; Ernest Fazio, Plaintiffs, and Mike Colbern, individually and on behalf of all similarly situated retired Major League Baseball Players, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Allan H. SELIG, aka "Bud" Selig, as Commissioner of Major League Baseball; New York Yankees Baseball Club, an entity of unknown form; Atlanta Braves, Inc., a Delaware Corporation; Detroit Tigers, Inc., a Michigan Corporation; St. Louis Cardinal Baseball Club, an entity of unknown form; Boston Red Sox Baseball Club, an entity of unknown form; Florida Marlins Baseball Club, an entity of unknown form; Anaheim Angels LP, a California limited partnership; Arizona Diamondbacks Baseball Club, an entity of unknown form; Baltimore Orioles, Inc., a Maryland Corporation; Chicago Cubs, Inc., an Illinois Corporation;

Chicago White Sox Baseball Club, an entity of unknown form; Cincinnati Reds Baseball Club, an entity of unknown form; Cleveland Indians Baseball Company, Inc., an Ohio Corporation; Colorado Rockies Baseball Club, an entity of unknown form; Houston Astros Baseball Club, an entity of unknown form; Kansas City Royals Baseball Corporation, a Missouri Corporation; Los Angeles Dodgers, Inc., a Delaware Corporation; Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club, Inc., a Wisconsin Corporation; Minnesota Twins Baseball Club, an entity of unknown form; Montreal Expos Baseball Club, an entity of unknown form; New York Mets Baseball Club, an entity of unknown form; The Phillies, a Pennsylvania limited Partnership; Pittsburgh Pirates, Inc., a Pennsylvania Corporation; San Diego Padres Baseball Club, an entity of unknown form; San Francisco Giants Enterprises LLC, a Delaware limited liability company; Seattle Mariners Baseball Club, an entity of unknown form; Tampa Bay Devil Rays Baseball Club, an entity of unknown form; Texas Rangers Baseball Club, an entity of unknown form; Oakland Athletics Limited Partnership, a Delaware Limited Partnership; Toronto Blue Jays Baseball Club, an entity of unknown form, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 04-55647.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted December 6, 2005.

Filed May 9, 2006.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Gerald M. Serlin (argued), Douglas G. Benedon, Benedon & Serlin, Woodland Hills, CA; John R. DaCorsi, Jason L. Rumsey, DaCorsi & Placensio, Woodland Hills, CA, for the plaintiffs-appellants.

Howard Ganz (argued), Lary Alan Rappaport, Proskauer Rose LLP, Los Angeles, CA, for the defendants-appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California; Manuel L. Real, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CV-03-07424-R.

Before REINHARDT and RAWLINSON, Circuit Judges, and JEREMY D. FOGEL,^* District Judge.

REINHARDT, Circuit Judge.

Appellants seek reversal of the district court's grant of summary judgment on their Title VII and battery claims. We conclude that they have failed to make a prima facie showing of discrimination under Title VII, and to offer evidence of the commission of a battery sufficient to survive summary judgment. With respect to the Title VII claim, we hold in the alternative that appellees had a legitimate non-discriminatory reason for the actions they took and that such reason was non-pretextual. Accordingly, we affirm.

I.

In October 2003, Mike Colbern, a retired Major League Baseball player,¹ brought a class action on behalf of himself and other retired baseball players against Major League Baseball ("MLB")² claiming, in pertinent part, that MLB had (1) violated Title VII by excluding them from medical and supplemental income plans devised by MLB for former Negro League players, and (2) committed battery by subjecting them to a dangerous regimen of cortisone shots and other drugs without their informed consent. Appellants are virtually all Caucasian³ former MLB players who played in the Major Leagues for less than four years between 1947 and 1979 and were accordingly denied MLB pension and medical benefits.⁴

Until 1947, when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in the Major Leagues, African-Americans were not allowed to play Major League Baseball and could play only in the so-called "Negro Leagues," associations of professional baseball clubs composed exclusively of black players. These clubs terminated all operations in the early 1960s as a result of the absorption of African-Americans into MLB, and the Negro Leagues ceased to exist. With the coming of racial integration to baseball, the market for a separate league for minority players evaporated. Having lost their economic base, the former Negro Leagues were unable to offer any pension or medical benefits to their former players. In the 1990s, seeking to make partial amends for its exclusion of African-Americans prior to 1947, MLB voluntarily decided to provide certain benefits to former Negro League players.⁵ In 1993, MLB created a plan that provided medical coverage to former Negro League players ("Negro League Medical Plan"). In 1997, it adopted a supplemental income plan that provided an annual payment of $10,000 to eligible players ("Negro League Supplemental Income Plan"). Individuals who had played in the Negro Leagues prior to 1948, i.e., prior to African-Americans being allowed in the Major Leagues, were eligible for such payments.⁶ (For ease of reference, these two plans are referred to collectively as the "Negro League Plans.") Some of the eligible players had subsequently played in the Major Leagues for a period of time too short to qualify them for MLB's regular medical and pension plans and some had never played in the Major Leagues at all.

On August 4, 2003, appellants filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charging that, in violation of Title VII, MLB had arbitrarily, intentionally and unlawfully excluded them from the Negro League Plans on the basis of their race. The EEOC issued appellants a right-to-sue letter on August 23, 2003, and appellants brought suit in federal district court on October 16, 2003, joining the Title VII charge with intentional battery, negligence, § 1981 and § 1985 claims. The intentional battery and negligence claims were wholly unrelated to any racial question but, instead, contained allegations that MLB team doctors and trainers had injected appellants with multiple cortisone shots and administered other drugs to them over the course of their careers and had deliberately failed to inform them of the potential risks associated with such treatment.

In response to appellants' complaint, the defendants filed a motion to dismiss and/or for summary judgment on January 30, 2004. On March 15, 2004, the district court held a hearing on the motion for summary judgment. At that hearing, the appellants withdrew their negligence, § 1981, and § 1985 claims. After hearing arguments on the remaining Title VII and battery claims, the district court granted defendants' motion for summary judgment, concluding that there were no genuine issues as to any material facts and that defendants were entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Appellants timely appealed, contending that the district court erred in granting summary judgment as to both the Title VII claim and the battery claim. We have jurisdiction over the appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

II.

We review the district court's grant of summary judgment de novo. See Buono v. Norton, 371 F.3d 543, 545 (9th Cir.2004). Our review is governed by the same standard used by the trial court under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(c). See Suzuki Motor Corp. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc., 330 F.3d 1110, 1131 (9th Cir.2003). In reviewing a grant of summary judgment, "[w]e must determine, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to ... the non-moving party, whether there are any genuine issues of material fact and whether the district court correctly applied the substantive law." Olsen v. Idaho State Bd. of Med., 363 F.3d 916, 922 (9th Cir.2004) (citation omitted). "We are not to weigh the evidence or determine the truth of the matter, but only to determine whether there is a genuine issue for trial." Abdul-Jabbar v. Gen. Motors Corp., 85 F.3d 407, 410 (9th Cir.1996) (citation omitted).

III.

Appellants contend that MLB's provision of medical and supplemental income benefits to certain African-Americans, former Negro League players who played in the Major Leagues between 1947-1979 for too short a period to vest in the MLB medical and pension benefits plans — but not to them — constitutes unlawful discrimination on the basis of race. Specifically, they allege disparate treatment in the provision of these benefits in violation of Title VII. To survive summary judgment on their Title VII claim, appellants must first make a prima facie case of such treatment. In order to do so, appellants must show that: (1) they belonged to a protected class; (2) they were qualified for their jobs; (3) they were subjected to an adverse employment action; and (4) similarly situated employees not in their protected class received more favorable treatment. See Kang v. U. Lim Am., Inc., 296 F.3d 810, 818 (9th Cir.2002). Appellants meet the first two criteria, which are not in dispute.⁷ They cannot satisfy the latter two criteria, however, and thus we affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment as to their Title VII claim.⁸ See Leong v. Potter, 347 F.3d 1117, 1125 (9th Cir.2003) (holding that the district court properly granted summary judgment where plaintiff could not demonstrate a prima facie case of discrimination). Alternatively, we hold that MLB had a legitimate non-discriminatory reason for adopting the two benefit plans, a reason that was non-pretextual.

A.

The alleged adverse employment action on which appellants base their Title VII claim is MLB's failure to provide them with the same medical and supplemental income benefits that it provides to former Negro League players who, like appellants, served in the Major Leagues during the 1947-1979 period...