Hilarious. The South Carolina trial court order in Tristan Smith v. NCAA cites Sorsby, a Texas trial court ruling issued four days earlier, 958 miles away, on different facts, as "persuasive authority" for its irreparable harm finding. That is not how legal reasoning works. It is not authority. It is not even persuasive authority.
Judge Salvini's use of the Sorsby order is absolutely bonkers. A four-day-old preliminary injunction from a different state, applying different law, on different facts, decided by a different trial court judge whose order has not been tested on appeal, has no doctrinal weight whatsoever. Zero. None. I have practiced for decades and have never seen a trial judge cite another trial judge's preliminary injunction from a different state as authority for anything. Grade F. Again.
Two incompetent trial judges in two states have now agreed, in the span of one week, that the most basic rules of NCAA enforcement do not apply, on theories that would not survive a first-year contracts exam, citing each other as if they were the Restatement.
Utterly depressing. If this is the new normal for state court adjudication of NCAA eligibility disputes, then the only rule left in college sports is the one against losing your case in the wrong venue.