## Facts

- Curt Flood, a longtime St. Louis Cardinals player, was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies in 1969 without prior consultation.
- Flood refused to report and sought to be treated as a free agent.
- The Commissioner of Baseball denied the request based on Major League Baseball’s reserve clause, which allowed clubs to retain a player’s contractual rights by unilateral renewal.
- Flood sued the Commissioner, league officials, and MLB clubs, asserting that the reserve system violated federal and state antitrust laws and other legal theories, including a Thirteenth Amendment claim.
- The federal district court entered judgment for defendants, treating prior Supreme Court decisions exempting professional baseball from federal antitrust law as controlling.
- The Second Circuit affirmed.

## Issues

1. Whether professional baseball’s reserve system is subject to the federal antitrust laws, including the Sherman Act.
2. Whether professional baseball is subject to state antitrust laws that would invalidate the reserve system.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment for defendants.
- The Court reaffirmed the existing judicially created exemption of professional baseball from federal antitrust laws.
- The Court acknowledged that professional baseball is engaged in interstate commerce but declined to overrule its earlier baseball antitrust cases.
- The Court treated stare decisis, congressional awareness, and reliance interests as reasons to leave any alteration of the exemption to Congress.
- The Court rejected or did not accept Flood’s alternative theories (including the Thirteenth Amendment claim) as independent grounds for relief.
- The Court concluded that state antitrust law could not be applied in a manner that would effectively negate the established federal exemption.

## Legal Principles

- Professional baseball remains exempt from federal antitrust laws under controlling Supreme Court precedent, notwithstanding the Court’s recognition that baseball is interstate commerce.
- Even where an existing rule is considered anomalous, stare decisis and substantial reliance may justify retaining it, particularly where Congress has repeatedly declined to change the rule.
- Congressional inaction in the face of settled judicial doctrine may be treated as acceptance for purposes of deciding whether the Court should alter the doctrine.
- State antitrust regimes may not be used to defeat a longstanding federal judicial rule that has been treated as governing the field in practice for decades.

## Conclusion

The Court left intact professional baseball’s antitrust exemption and held that any correction of the resulting inconsistency with general antitrust doctrine, including any change affecting the reserve system, must come from Congress rather than judicial revision.


Flood v. Kuhn, 407 U.S. 258 (1972)