Lee v. Brothers

The National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) was a union for professional basketball players. The NBPA had regulations intended to protect players. One of the regulations was an antipoaching provision that prohibited an NBPA-certified agent from offering a monetary inducement to a player, rookie, or college athlete to induce the person to use the agent’s services. Agents’ certification agreements with the NBPA incorporated the NBPA’s regulations by reference and stated that violations of the regulations subjected an agent to disciplinary action. In September 2017, certified agent David Lee (plaintiff) contracted to represent Mitchell Robinson, a potential draftee for the National Basketball Association. A few months later, just three months before the draft, Robinson terminated his contract with Lee, allegedly because certified agent Raymond Brothers (defendant) offered to buy Robinson a new pickup truck if Robinson switched to Brothers’ agency. Lee sued Brothers, arguing that Brothers had breached his certification agreement with the NBPA by inducing Robinson to switch agents, and that Lee was entitled to damages because the NBPA’s antipoaching provision rendered Lee a third-party beneficiary of the certification agreement. Brothers moved to dismiss the claim, arguing that Lee did not qualify as a third-party beneficiary of Brothers’ certification agreement with the NBPA and therefore had no right to enforce the contract or recover damages for its breach.