Ruling Denies Garvey

After losing in the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, former Dodger star Steve Garvey will return to an arbitrator to seek $3.2 million he claims was wrongly withheld by the San Diego Padres.

The 8-1 ruling reversed a federal court that had overturned the arbitrator’s judgment against Garvey and ordered the payment.

“What they’re really saying is instead of the court making the decision, it should go back to the arbitrator to make a decision,” said Neil Papiano, Garvey’s attorney in Los Angeles. “Obviously, we will go back to the arbitrator.

“It’s far from over. He understands that you have to win your way through the court system.”

At issue was whether Garvey was a victim of collusion by the baseball owners in the late 1980s.

The major league players’ union had succeeded in proving that the owners conspired during these years to hold down salary offers to free agents. To settle the claims, the owners set up a $280-million fund.

But the claims soon exceeded the fund. Approximately 840 players sought damages totaling more than $1.2 billion.

Garvey was among them. He said the Padres in 1985 had offered to extend his contract through 1988 and 1989 at $1.5 million per year. But the offer was withdrawn soon after it was made.

In a hearing on Garvey’s case, arbitrator Thomas T. Roberts relied on testimony from former Padre president Ballard Smith to reject Garvey’s claim. Smith had testified in 1986 that the team no longer needed the aging, highly paid star. When he had first arrived from Los Angeles, Garvey brought “credibility” to the struggling Padres, Smith testified.

“We wouldn’t sign him today,” he added in his 1986 testimony. “We’re stuck with a couple of younger players we’d like to play at first base.”

Considering this evidence, the arbitrator concluded the team had changed its plans for Garvey in 1986, and the loss of the extra two years in salary was not due to collusion among the owners.

After losing in arbitration, Garvey filed a lawsuit and won a favorable decision from the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Judge Steven Reinhardt of Los Angeles questioned how the arbitrator could rely on Smith’s 1986 testimony, because much of it was found to be false.

The owners had colluded to hold down salaries, and Smith himself later acknowledged that Garvey was wrongly denied the extra money. Smith submitted a statement saying he wanted to “right what I feel was a wrong I participated in against Steve.”

Citing this evidence, Judge Reinhardt called the arbitrator’s decision against Garvey “completely inexplicable and [it] borders on the irrational.”

As a general rule, courts are not supposed to second-guess arbitrators. But Judge Reinhardt described Garvey’s case as the exception. By a 2-1 vote, the 9th Circuit overturned the arbitrator’s decision and ordered that Garvey be paid the $3.2 million in dispute.

The Major League Baseball Players Assn. appealed to the Supreme Court in January. Its lawyers accused the 9th Circuit of overstepping its bounds and wrongly interfering in a dispute that was to be resolved by arbitration, not courts.

The justices agreed and sided with the players’ union. In a short, unsigned opinion, it called the 9th’s circuit move “nothing short of baffling.” Decisions turned over to arbitrators should not be second-guessed by judges, the court ruled in the case of Major League Players Assn. vs. Garvey.

From 1969 to 1982, Garvey played first base for the Dodgers. He was a National League all-star eight times and the league’s most valuable player in 1974.

He became a free agent after the 1982 season and signed a five-year deal with the Padres. He led the team to its first World Series appearance in 1984.

But in his final season of 1987, he suffered an arm injury and batted only .211 in 27 games. He retired at season’s end at age 39.

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The Associated Press contributed to this story.