Source: USA TODAY
The NCAA on Monday asked a federal judge to delay by nearly 15 months the scheduled trial date for an anti-trust lawsuit pertaining to the use of college athletes’ names and likenesses.
At present, a trial is set to begin on June 9, 2014.
As part of a series of filings Monday that involved all of the parties in the case, the NCAA’s co-defendants – video game manufacturer Electronic Arts and the nation’s leading collegiate trademark licensing and marketing firm, Collegiate Licensing Co. (CLC) -proposed a five-month delay while the NCAA sought a trial date of Aug. 28, 2015.
The plaintiffs, led by former UCLA basketball star Ed O’Bannon, wrote Monday that they want U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken to leave the date unchanged.
The case, which began in May 2009, has seen multiple re-schedulings of trial dates, the most recent ones moving the case back from March 2013 and then February 2014.
Since conducting a hearing June 20 on the plaintiffs’ bid for the case to be certified as class action – an issue she has yet to decide – Wilken has faced a lengthy series of moves and countermoves that became even further complicated on Monday, when EA stated its intention to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to take up two other cases involving the use of college athletes’ names and likenesses.
One of those cases, which involves former Arizona State and Nebraska quarterback Sam Keller, has been consolidated with the O’Bannon case and was set to be returned to Wilken – although EA on Monday asked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to delay that action pending its request to the Supreme Court.
The NCAA and EA both referenced the Keller case in their Monday filings related to the O’Bannon case, arguing that the courts’ further consideration of EA’s position in the Keller case could have an impact on the O’Bannon case – and thus is among the reasons they cite in seeking delay of the O’Bannon case.
In the O’Bannon case, in addition to the class-certification question, Wilken now is dealing with:
The document then covered each party’s argument for its scheduling proposal, leaving the judge with yet another matter to decide.
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