August 22, 2018
Senne vs. Office of the Commissioner of Baseball
Aaron Senne v. Major League Baseball, U.S. District Court Case No. 3:14-CV-00608-JCS (Northern District of California), was a landmark class action in which minor league baseball players alleged receiving less than the minimum wage under both federal and state labor laws. Econ One and Dr. Brian Kriegler were retained to devise and ultimately implement a methodology for determining the amount of unpaid wages, interest, and statutory penalties owed to each minor leaguer.
Dr. Kriegler’s damages model involved “re-creating” the workday by combining player transactional data, team schedules, rosters, game information from the Minor League Baseball website, Google Maps, and survey data. But for earnings were determined based on payroll data produced by each of the 30 Major League Baseball organizations along with historical state/federal minimum wage requirements. In total, the class consisted of more than 25,000 former/current minor league baseball players and more than a decade of spring training and championship seasons. Once the parties reached a $185 million settlement in 2023, Dr. Kriegler was tasked with determining individual awards for each class member based on his analysis during the litigation.