Oakland Loses Again in Its 5-Year Court Battle to Regain Raiders From L.A.

A state appellate court Friday rejected yet another effort by Oakland to reclaim the Los Angeles Raiders football team, saying such an move would violate the U.S. Constitution.

In a case certain to be appealed to the state Supreme Court, the three-judge panel concluded that Oakland could not invoke the power of eminent domain to acquire the National Football League franchise and force the team back.

Such a move would violate the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition against a state or local government taking action that would interfere with interstate commerce.

“This is the precise brand of parochial meddling with the national economy that the commerce clause was designed to prohibit,” the court said, noting that NFL franchises share revenue from network television broadcasts of their games, ticket sales and other sources.

In an opinion by Justice M. O. Sabraw, the court added: “Relocation of the Raiders would implicate the welfare not only of the individual team franchise but of the entire league. The specter of such local action throughout the state or across the country demonstrates the need for uniform, national regulation.”

Oakland had argued that it needed to acquire the Raiders for the city’s economy and because the football team provided public recreation and “social welfare.”

But the court, while acknowledging that relocations by sports franchises damage cities, said that to ensure uniformity nationwide, any regulation restricting movements of NFL teams must come from Congress.

The case is one of two major suits that resulted from the Raiders’ move to Los Angeles in 1982. In the first case, the Raiders and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission won almost $50 million in a federal antitrust suit against the NFL. That case is on appeal.

Oakland, meanwhile, pressed its eminent domain case in the state court system. The 5-year-old case went up to the state Supreme Court previously. In 1983, the high court ruled that a local government, in certain circumstances, could invoke its eminent domain power to acquire “intangible” property such as a football team. Previously, the power was used solely to take over tangible property such as real estate for roads or other public improvements.

The 1983 ruling sent the case back to a trial before a judge in Monterey County. The trial resulted in a victory for the Raiders. Friday’s ruling upheld the ruling for the Raiders.