Judge who shaped NFL free agency system dies at 96

David S. Doty, the federal judge who oversaw the Reggie White antitrust case in Minneapolis, died June 27 at 96, three days before his 97th birthday. For decades, the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota was where the league’s fights with its players landed.

Appointed to the federal bench in 1987, Doty took senior status in 1998 but kept a significant caseload until just a few months before his death. He devoted his life to public service and repeatedly presided over NFL-related litigation over many years.

Doty’s most consequential role came in the Reggie White antitrust case, after the NFL Players Association had decertified and players challenged the league’s personnel rules as antitrust violations. The dispute produced the 1993 settlement that formed the foundation of the modern NFL labor system. It created true free agency, the franchise tag and the salary cap, and it also included minimum revenue guarantees tied to that cap.

In White v. National Football League, the cap was treated as part of a broader agreement that also gave players liberalized free agency and minimum revenue guarantees. That broader settlement, signed in 1993 by a class of plaintiffs led by Reggie White, governed labor relations between the NFL and its players.

Doty spent years overseeing the league’s disputes with its players from Minneapolis, where he became a fixture in one of professional sports’ most important legal arenas. He was one of Minnesota’s longest-serving federal judges and was praised on the bench for courtesy and compassion.