Soccer Phenom’s Challenge to Age Policy Not a ‘Labor Dispute’

A teen phenom’s antitrust challenge to the minimum playing age set by the National Women’s Soccer League isn’t covered by a law establishing special requirements for injunctions in cases involving “labor disputes,” a federal judge in Oregon ruled.

One day before a scheduled temporary restraining order hearing, Judge Karin J. Immergut denied the league’s bid to invoke the Norris LaGuardia Act, which limits the authority of federal courts to issue injunctions that could affect collective bargaining talks.

The case “does not involve the type of ‘labor dispute’ the NLGA was designed to shield from judicial interference,” Immergut wrote Wednesday. The ...