Justia Entertainment & Sports Law Opinion Summaries

For budget reasons, St. Cloud State University shut down six of its sports teams, including women's tennis and Nordic Skiing teams. Female student-athletes brought a Title IX discrimination action. 20 U.S.C. 1681(a). The district court preliminarily enjoined cutting the women's teams, concluding the University failed to comply with Title IX requirements in its allocation of athletic participation opportunities and treatment and benefits for student-athletes.The Eighth Circuit reversed in part and remanded. The court upheld findings that the University uses a tier system for dividing particular teams, offering different levels of support to each tier. The University violated Title IX by not providing equitable participation opportunities for men and women. The district court erred, however, by requiring the University to provide equitable treatment and benefits “among the tiers of support,” and by mandating steps toward eliminating the unequal distribution of “participation opportunities among the tiers” rather than analyzing the institution's programs as a whole. View "Portz v. St. Cloud State University" on Justia Law

The Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment and award of attorney's fees, expenses, and costs to plaintiffs, in an action brought under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Plaintiffs, two individuals with hearing impairments and two organizations, filed suit seeking injunctive and declaratory relief, including mandated captions at all performances for which the Fox Theater received a captioning request two weeks in advance, publicity that captions were available along with a way to request them, and sale of tickets to deaf and hard-of-hearing patrons by non-telephonic means.The court held that the Fox did not provide meaningful access to individuals with hearing impairments and that plaintiffs' claims were not subject to the undue burden defense. In this case, one captioned performance per run of a show denied hearing impaired persons an equal opportunity to gain the same benefit as persons without impairments and denied them meaningful access to benefits the Fox provided. The court noted, however, that if the volume of captioning requests in the future rises to the level of an undue burden on the Fox, nothing precludes Fox Associates from bringing its own lawsuit and seeking to modify the district court's order in this case. The court also held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in failing to reduce its award of attorney's fees based on partial litigation success; in setting an hourly rate of $450; and in declining to reduce its fee award further for inefficiency. View "Childress v. Fox Associates, LLC" on Justia Law