National Collegiate Athletic Association headquarters, Indianapolis (Shutterstock)

A federal judge on Wednesday ruled against the National Collegiate Athletic Association in a class-action lawsuit challenging the organization's limits on compensation for student athletes.

U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken of the Northern District of California denied the NCAA request to toss the case and set a trial for Dec. 3 in the multidistrict litigation. Member conferences, such as the Pac-12, Big Ten and Southeastern Conference are also defendants in the case.

The plaintiffs, a class of current and former student-athletes in Division 1 football and men's and women's Division 1 basketball, argue that the NCAA's limits on scholarships and benefits that student-athletes can receive as compensation for their athletic services violate antitrust law.

Wilken wrote in her opinion that the plaintiffs had met their burden of showing that the NCAA's rules produce anti-competitive effects.

Hagens Berman's Steve Berman, who represents the plaintiffs along with Winston & Strawn's Jeffrey Kessler and Bruce Simon of Pearson, Simon & Warshaw, called the ruling a “homerun win.” 

“A key part of Judge Wilken's order is that the court recognizes that our alternative of individual conferences being allowed to decide what is in the best interest of the student-athletes is a viable option, and we will be allowed to show that to be the case at trial,” Berman said in a statement.

In a statement, the NCAA said the decision “recognized, as other courts have for decades, that principles of amateurism and student-athlete well-being are critical to college sports.”  

“We look forward to proving at trial that the rules are essential to providing educational opportunities to nearly half a million student-athletes,” the statement said.

In 2009, former University of California at Los Angeles basketball player Ed O'Bannon led a class action antitrust lawsuit challenging the organization's rules preventing men's football and basketball players from being paid for sale of licenses to use their images, names or likenesses. In 2014, Wilken ruled against the NCAA in that case, but the Ninth Circuit narrowed her ruling on appeal.

The NCAA argued the decisions in the O'Bannon case, which ultimately settled for $208 million, foreclosed the claims brought in the current litigation. In her ruling Wednesday, Wilken dismissed those arguments.

“Because Plaintiffs raise new antitrust challenges to conduct, in a different time period, relating to rules that are not the same as those challenged in O'Bannon, res judicata and collateral estoppel do not preclude the claims even of those Plaintiffs who were O'Bannon class members,” Wilken wrote.

The judge said that the plaintiffs produced “undisputed evidence” that student-athletes would be offered greater compensation and benefits during recruitment but for the challenged rules.

Wilken is set to evaluate the plaintiffs proposed alternatives to the rules, such as allowing the individual conferences to set the compensation limits, at the December trial. A pretrial conference is set for Nov. 13.