Hamilton County Board of Commissioners v.

National
Football League
6th Circuit Court of Appeals
491 F.3d 310 (6th Cir. 2007)

Key Search Terms: Antitrust, Competition, Statute of Limitations,

Monopoly, Negotiation

Facts
Hamilton County filed suit against the Cincinnati Bengals, the National
Football League, and it’s 31 other teams based on the anticompetitive and
monopolistic behaviors. The Bengals claimed that they could not remain
competitive unless given a new stadium, citing deficient seating in both
capacity and luxury. The owner of the Bengals, Mike Brown, threatened to
move the team out of Cincinnati if they did not get a new stadium. Brown then
gave the county an ultimatum of a new stadium or the Bengal’s would move to
a city that offered to build a new stadium. During negotiations, the county
asked to see their financial information but the team refused. Despite never
getting the financial info, they entered a lease agreement in May of 1997 to
begin erecting the new stadium. Four years later, in May of 2001, the L.A.
Times published an article which disclosed that the Bengals were 8th out of the
31 teams in profits. In May of 2003, County filed lawsuit with claims that
Bengal’s/NFL violated §§ 1 and 2 of Sherman Act.

Issue
The issue is whether the county’s suit should be barred by the statute of
limitations and whether the county could have brought a claim within the
limitations period.

Holding
The 6th Circuit held that the statute of limitations had run because the source
of the injury was the signing of the stadium lease, which occurred six years
prior. Additionally, the county was aware of facts which it could have based an
action on during the limitations period. These facts include: a previous
unsuccessful case (St. Louis v. NFL, 154 F.3d 851), awareness of extortionary
tactics used by the Bengals, council discussion of lawsuit prior to 2003,
pending congressional legislation regarding monopoly powers, and newspaper
reports of the monopoly power of NFL. The court of appeals reasoned that
obtaining the Bengal’s financial information was irrelevant. Additionally, the
6th Circuit reasoned that the financial info of the Bengal’s was available via
three sources of media which was sufficient notice.

Summarized By: Erika Nelson