WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Supreme Court ruled Monday that a class-action lawsuit alleging that minor league baseball players are paid less than minimum wage can proceed.

What You Need To Know

  • The Supreme Court allowed a class-action lawsuit filed by former and current minor league baseball players to proceed

  • The players allege they were paid below minimum wage, most earning less than $7,500 a year

  • The high court rejected the request from Major League Baseball to dismiss the case

  • The 2020 minor league baseball season was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic

The justices rejected the request from Major League Baseball, the defendant, to dismiss the lawsuit but did not comment on the case.  

The case of Senne v. Royals was first filed in 2014 and later expanded to include past and present minor league players in Arizona, California and Florida. The lawsuit claims most minor-leaguers earn less than $7,500 a year and are unpaid during spring training camps, violating several laws. The plaintiffs are seeking back pay and rules to compensate current players for hours worked in the future.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit allowed the lawsuit to move forward in August 2019, but Major League Baseball appealed the ruling.

"The ultimate goal is pretty simple: to get MLB to comply with the same laws that Walmart and McDonald's comply with," Garrett Broshuis, the attorney and former minor league player who filed the initial lawsuit, told ESPN. "Whenever they ask players to go to spring training, they should be paying their employees for it. During a season, there's no reason for players to be making $7,500 or $8,000 a year."

The 2020 minor league baseball season was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic, but Triple-A players were slated to earn $700 per week played, Double-A players $600, Single-A players $500, and rookie-league and short-season players $400. That was an increase from 2019, when the pay scale started at $290 a week. 

In 2018, Major League Baseball successfully lobbied Congress to pass the Save America's Pastime Act, which removed minimum-wage protection for minor league players. 

In a statement emailed to Spectrum News, MLB said: "While Major League Baseball does not comment on ongoing litigation, MLB remains focused on modernizing its player development system to enhance the Minor League experience for players, including providing them with renovated facilities, reduced travel, and improved daily working conditions.  MLB had long planned to increase Minor League player salaries as part of our next agreement with Minor League clubs, and announced earlier this year that Minor League players would be receiving salary increases ranging from 38% to 72% for the 2021 season.”

MLB is in the process of overhauling its minor leagues, with a quarter of the 160 teams facing contraction.