In 2025, former Milwaukee Brewers player Darin Ruf sued the Cincinnati Reds in an Ohio state court over an allegedly career-ending knee injury Ruf suffered at the Reds’ Great American Ball Park in 2023 when he ran into the end of the rolled-up tarp chasing a foul ball down the first base line, which Ruf claimed was not properly padded.

The Reds argued that Ruf’s claims were “preempted” — barred — by the collective-bargaining agreement between Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association. In January, a federal court rejected the Reds’ arguments, the latest loss on this issue for MLB clubs with which NFL clubs have had more success.

The preemption playbook

Each major American sports league CBA contains a provision requiring confidential arbitration to resolve disputes concerning the CBA or a player’s contract. Nonetheless, players occasionally bring lawsuits in state or federal courts for conduct they argue the CBA does not cover. The leagues and clubs involved seek to have the cases dismissed, arguing that under federal labor law, the CBA preempts the claims. The Supreme Court has established that claims whose resolution are “substantially dependent upon analysis of the terms of” a CBA are preempted and must be brought under the CBA’s arbitration provisions.

Preemption in practice

The cases that have presented the most difficulty for leagues (and courts) are those like Ruf’s, where a player has........

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