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Court Dismisses Student Athlete Name, Image, And Likeness Putative Class Action
07/29/2025On July 18, 2025, U.S. District Judge Sarah Morrison of the Southern District of Ohio granted motions filed by the Ohio State University (“OSU”), Learfield Communications, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (“NCAA”) and the Big Ten Conference to dismiss antitrust claims by a putative class of former Ohio State student athletes. Terrelle Pryor v. Nat’l Collegiate Athletic Ass’n, et al., No. 24-cv-04019, ECF No. 59 (S.D. Oh. Jul. 18, 2025).
The named plaintiff was Terrelle Pryor, a highly regarded OSU football quarterback from 2008 to 2010. He brought claims on behalf of a putative class of all former student athletes who competed on an Ohio State athletic team at any time prior to the changes to the name, image, and likeness rules of the NCAA. Pryor alleged that, while he was a student-athlete, Defendants forced him and the putative class members to cede control of their publicity or name-image-likeness (“NIL”) rights to Defendants for free, or else forfeit their right to compete in collegiate sports. He further alleged that Defendants continued to use Plaintiffs’ NIL and publicity to promote collegiate sports and make money to the present day. Pryor alleged that Defendants essentially agreed to fix prices in the market for labor of student athletes. He sought both damages and injunctive relief under Section 1 of the Sherman Act. Defendants moved to dismiss the complaint.
As an initial matter in evaluating Defendants’ motion to dismiss, the court determined that Pryor had Article III standing to bring his Sherman Act claims. Defendants argued that Pryor did not, because he could not establish injury-in-fact on the basis that he did not have publicity rights to the broadcast footage of the games in which he played under Ohio law. The Court disagreed—it held that Pryor had standing because he alleged Defendants required him to relinquish control of all NIL rights, which resulted in lost compensation.
The Court also held that sovereign immunity barred Pryor’s claims against OSU. As a public university, OSU argued it is “an arm of the State” of Ohio, and under the Eleventh Amendment, is immune from suit. Pryor argued that sovereign immunity did not apply for several reasons, including that OSU acted as a commercial participant as to each student athlete’s NIL rights, and therefore, was not entitled to state-action immunity. The Court disagreed, holding that the Eleventh Amendment “completely bars suits against sovereign states…seeking retrospective monetary relief,” and as such, the commercial exception outlined in Parker v. Brown did not apply. See 317 U.S. 341 (1943). The Court also held that the Ex parte Young exception also did not apply, as Pryor did not sue any OSU officials in their official capacity.
The court additionally evaluated whether Pryor’s claims were timely under the Sherman Act’s four-year statute of limitations. Pryor played football at OSU until 2010 and did not file his complaint until 2024. However, he invoked the continuing violations doctrine: he alleged that the statutory period restarted each time Defendants used footage or images of his performance for commercial purposes, and but-for Defendants’ agreement, he would have received compensation for each use. The Court disagreed, holding that “continued commercial usage of Mr. Pryor’s NIL rights is a manifestation of Defendants’ past conduct, not a new and independent act that restarts the statute of limitations.” It explicitly noted that if it were to adopt Pryor’s theory, the applicable limitations period would be “infinite,” as a plaintiff would be able to “routinely salvage an otherwise untimely claim by asserting that it continues to lose revenue because of past alleged anticompetitive conduct.” After finding that Pryor’s claims were untimely under the Sherman Act’s statute of limitations, the Court also held that the doctrine of fraudulent concealment did not equitably toll the limitations period for the same claims. Pryor alleged that Defendants fraudulently concealed their misuse of publicity rights under the guise of amateurism. The Court disagreed that this allegation was enough to save Pryor’s claim, because Pryor knew that he had to relinquish control of his publicity rights when he played football at OSU, and did not allege he had no knowledge of what he was relinquishing or that he was unaware of Defendants’ practice of using his publicity rights commercially.
Last, Defendants argued that Pryor’s claims for injunctive relief were barred by the doctrine of laches. The Court held that in applying laches, Pryor’s Sherman Act claims were presumed unreasonable and prejudicial to Defendants if brought after the statutory period, and Pryor had rebutted that presumption. See McKeon Prods., Inc. v. Howard S. Leight & Assocs., Inc., 15 F.4th 736, 744 (6th Cir. 2021). Pryor failed to make arguments to rebut the presumption, so the court held that Pryor’s claims for injunctive relief under the Sherman Act were time-barred under the doctrine of laches.
The Court’s decision underscores that defendants should carefully assess when a plaintiff’s claim accrues, even at the pleading stage. It also illustrates the importance of other defensive doctrines that may be available to defendants early in the case, such as laches.
