Michael Savage's 'Free Agency' Upheld By 9th Circuit

Michael Savage

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday upheld a federal judge’s decision to release talk-radio host Michael Savage from a contract with his former syndicator, Talk Radio Network.

WND reports, when U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled in Savage’s favor in 2013, Savage’s lawyer, Dan Horowitz, compared it to the case that led to free agency in baseball.

“Michael is to talk radio what Curt Flood was to Major League Baseball,” Horowitz told WND at the time, referring to the player who challenged baseball’s reserve clause, which kept a player bound to his team even after fulfillment of his contract.

“For me, personally, it finalizes a struggle to perform for my audience in an atmosphere of freedom, not working on a ‘radio plantation,’” Savage told WND after the original decision.

Savage told WND Friday, “After five long years and a fortune in my costs, justice has prevailed.”

Savage said the case cost him $1 million in legal fees “and many lost days and nights.”

Horowitz said in 2013 that Savage’s victory establishes the ability of radio talent to break away from an employer like any other employee.

Radio hosts, he explained, have been bound by restrictive clauses in their contracts that treat them like businesses instead of regular employees. The law, therefore, has allowed the networks to enforce non-compete agreements with radio hosts that would be illegal if applied to individual employees.