Navarro v. U.S. Center for SafeSport: No Exhaustion for Constitutional Challenges Beyond SafeSport Arbitration’s Scope

1. Introduction

Thomas Navarro, James Giorgio, and Nina Shaffer (three equestrian trainers/breeder and members of the United States Equestrian Federation, Inc. (“USEF”)) sued the United States Center for SafeSport (“SafeSport”), the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (“USOC”), and USEF after SafeSport sanctioned them based on abuse-related allegations (two based on prior criminal pleas; one based on a SafeSport investigation). They alleged that SafeSport’s ability to impose ineligibility without a pre-deprivation hearing violated due process, and that Congress impermissibly delegated governmental power to a private entity.

The case sits at the intersection of (i) the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act of 1978 (“ASA”), which imposes governance obligations on national governing bodies (“NGBs”) like USEF; and (ii) the Protecting Victims from Sexual Abuse and Safe Sport Authorization Act of 2018 (as amended) (the “SafeSport Authorization Act”), which centralized abuse-related enforcement in SafeSport while specifying that SafeSport may impose interim measures before a hearing or arbitration and disclaimed any inference that SafeSport is a “state actor.”

The district court dismissed: (1) Shaffer for failure to exhaust arbitration; (2) the USOC for lack of standing; (3) all due process claims because defendants were not state actors; and (4) the private non-delegation claim on the merits. On appeal, the Fourth Circuit reversed only on exhaustion, affirmed on standing and state action, and held it lacked jurisdiction to reach the non-delegation merits.

2. Summary of the Opinion

Exhaustion (reversed): Shaffer was not required to arbitrate under the SafeSport Code before filing suit because her claims attacked the constitutionality of SafeSport and its procedures—issues the court viewed as outside the scope of Code arbitration, which focuses on whether the respondent violated the Code and the appropriate sanction.
Standing vs. USOC (affirmed dismissal): Appellants failed to show their injuries were fairly traceable to USOC actions or redressable by relief against the USOC.
State action / Due Process (affirmed dismissal): SafeSport, USEF, and USOC were not state actors subject to the Fifth (or Fourteenth) Amendment Due Process Clause; the panel treated San Francisco Arts & Athletics, Inc. v. USOC as controlling.
Private non-delegation (jurisdictional disposition): Because plaintiffs lacked a cognizable, traceable injury that could support the case after the due process claims failed, the court held it lacked jurisdiction to reach the non-delegation claim’s merits.

3. Analysis

3.1 Precedents Cited

A. Justiciability and Standing

Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife: Provided the core three-part standing framework—injury, causation (fair traceability), and redressability—and anchored the panel’s conclusion that USOC neither caused nor could remedy the complained-of sanctions.
Simon v. E. Ky. Welfare Rights Org. (quoted in Lujan): Supplied the causation principle that injuries caused by independent third parties generally are not “fairly traceable” to the defendant.
Warth v. Seldin: Cited for the court’s obligation to assure jurisdiction (including standing) before reaching merits.
FDA v. All. for Hippocratic Med., United States v. Richardson, and Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife: Used to reject “general grievances” as a basis for standing—critical to the court’s refusal to reach a free-standing constitutional objection (non-delegation) absent a concrete, traceable injury.
Collins v. Yellen: Supplied the modern articulation that traceability focuses on allegedly unlawful conduct causing injury, not merely on the existence of a challenged legal provision—yet still requires a plaintiff to identify a cognizable injury to “unlock” such structural claims.

B. Standard of Review and Appellate Thresholds

Blair v. Appomattox Cnty. Sch. Bd.: Cited for de novo review of dismissal and the plausibility/assumed-truth pleading posture.
Talley v. Folwell: Reinforced the court’s independent duty to confirm subject matter jurisdiction.

C. State Action Doctrine

San Francisco Arts & Athletics, Inc. v. USOC (referred to as “SFFA” in the opinion): The central controlling precedent. The panel treated SFFA’s holding—that USOC is not a state actor in ordinary course despite a congressional charter and heavy regulation— as effectively dispositive for USOC and strongly indicative for similarly situated private sports-governance entities.
Peltier v. Charter Day Sch., Inc. (en banc): Provided the Fourth Circuit’s four pathways for finding state action, emphasizing the fact-specific nature of the inquiry.
Manhattan Cmty. Access Corp. v. Halleck: Provided the limiting principles: private entities are state actors only in “few” circumstances, including when government compels a particular action.

D. Exhaustion / Arbitration Context

Callaghan v. U.S. Ctr. for SafeSport and Sanderson v. U.S. Ctr. for SafeSport: The district court relied on these out-of-circuit, unpublished district court cases to impose exhaustion; the Fourth Circuit distinguished them as involving claims tied to rule-following, reinstatement, or matters conceivably within the arbitration clause, and as not supporting a broad “must exhaust” rule for constitutional challenges beyond arbitration’s scope.

E. Private Non-Delegation

Pittston Co. v. U.S.: Quoted by appellants for the proposition that private entities may be limited to “ministerial or advisory” functions; the panel, however, did not reach the merits because it found jurisdiction lacking once plaintiffs’ injury theory failed.

3.2 Legal Reasoning

A. Standing Against USOC: “Jurisdiction over USOC” Runs the Other Way

The court framed the USOC standing issue as a straightforward application of Lujan causation and redressability. The sanctions were imposed by SafeSport, and federal law makes SafeSport “independent” and gives it “jurisdiction over the [USOC] and each national governing body” regarding abuse safeguarding (36 U.S.C. § 220541(a)(1)(B)). The USOC (and USEF) were required to enforce SafeSport’s determinations (36 U.S.C. § 220541(b)), and neither could meaningfully revisit SafeSport’s final eligibility decisions. Thus:

No fair traceability: USOC did not cause the complained-of process; SafeSport did.
No redressability: Even if a court ordered something involving USOC/USEF, the sanctions’ source and finality (and the legal structure mandating enforcement) made it unlikely that relief against USOC would change appellants’ status.

B. Exhaustion: No Arbitration Requirement Where Arbitration Can’t Decide the Claims

The panel’s reversal on exhaustion turned on scope. It read the SafeSport Code and the statute’s arbitration contemplation (36 U.S.C. § 220541(c)(1)) as geared toward resolving abuse allegations and participation eligibility—not adjudicating the facial constitutionality of SafeSport’s design or procedures. The opinion emphasized that even the internal grievance paths invoked by Navarro and Giorgio produced consistent institutional statements that the bodies lacked authority to decide constitutional/federal-law issues.

The practical rule announced is functional rather than formal: exhaustion is not required when the proffered “administrative” remedy is not empowered to grant the relief sought. Because Shaffer’s claims were constitutional-structural (not merits-of-sanction), arbitration was not an available “remedy” to exhaust.

C. Due Process: SFFA as a Ceiling on Treating Olympic-Sport Governance as State Action

The court rejected the attempt to constitutionalize SafeSport’s processes via the Fifth (and Fourteenth) Amendment for two core reasons:

Private character and function: Like USOC in San Francisco Arts & Athletics, Inc. v. USOC, SafeSport and USEF are private corporations performing sports-governance functions, not “traditional and exclusive” governmental functions.
No compelled “particular action” by Congress: While Congress required certain general obligations and created a regime in which SafeSport’s decisions are enforced, it did not compel the specific challenged procedural choices (the panel repeatedly stressed the absence of governmental direction of the “particular action” under Manhattan Cmty. Access Corp. v. Halleck).

The court also treated the statutory text as undercutting the appellants’ effort to import the ASA’s pre-ineligibility hearing language into SafeSport itself: the SafeSport Authorization Act explicitly states it does not preclude interim measures or sanctions “before an opportunity for a hearing or arbitration” (36 U.S.C. § 220541(a)(2)).

D. Private Non-Delegation: Structural Claims Still Need a Case

The panel’s most consequential “non-merits” move is jurisdictional: it held that once the plaintiffs’ live, cognizable injury theory fails (here, due process claims fail because no state action; USOC claims fail for standing), the court cannot proceed to decide a broad structural argument that Congress acted unconstitutionally by empowering SafeSport. That follows the anti-general-grievance line of FDA v. All. for Hippocratic Med., United States v. Richardson, and Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife.

3.3 Impact

Meaningful but bounded win for plaintiffs on exhaustion: The decision makes it harder for defendants to force arbitration as a gatekeeping device when the plaintiff’s claims are constitutional/structural and beyond the arbitrator’s authority. This matters for litigants who allege defects in the statutory/private architecture rather than case-specific guilt or sanction severity.
State-action barrier remains decisive in the Fourth Circuit: By reading San Francisco Arts & Athletics, Inc. v. USOC as controlling and broadly informative, the opinion signals that—absent materially different governmental compulsion, entwinement, or outsourcing of a constitutional obligation—federal due process challenges to SafeSport procedures will likely fail.
USOC as a difficult target defendant: The causation/redressability analysis suggests future plaintiffs will struggle to sue USOC over SafeSport sanctions where USOC lacks review power and is statutorily required to enforce SafeSport outcomes.
Non-delegation challenges face a justiciability gate: Even potentially significant structural arguments about private regulatory power may not be reached unless plaintiffs can establish a cognizable injury traceable to allegedly unlawful conduct that a court can remedy.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

Standing (injury, causation, redressability): A plaintiff must show (1) a real, personal harm; (2) that the defendant caused it (not someone else); and (3) that the court can likely fix it with the requested relief.
Exhaustion: The idea that you must use required internal procedures (like arbitration) before going to court. This opinion emphasizes that exhaustion is not required when the procedure cannot decide the issue you are raising (e.g., a facial constitutional challenge).
State actor / State action: Constitutional due process typically applies only to government actors. A private entity becomes a “state actor” only in narrow circumstances (e.g., performing an exclusive government function, being compelled by government, or being pervasively entwined with government).
Private non-delegation doctrine: A constitutional principle (invoked by appellants) suggesting Congress cannot hand core governmental power to private parties without adequate constraints. The court did not decide the merits here because it found no jurisdiction once plaintiffs’ injury theory failed.
“General grievance”: A broad complaint that “the government is acting unconstitutionally” without a concrete, personal injury that the court can remedy. Federal courts generally cannot decide such claims.
Interim measures: Temporary restrictions imposed before a final hearing. The SafeSport Authorization Act explicitly allows SafeSport to impose interim measures or sanctions before a hearing or arbitration opportunity.

5. Conclusion

Navarro v. United States Center for SafeSport creates an important procedural clarification: plaintiffs need not “exhaust” SafeSport Code arbitration before filing suit when their claims challenge the constitutionality of SafeSport’s structure or procedures and are outside the arbitrator’s authorized scope. But the opinion simultaneously reinforces two formidable barriers to federal constitutional litigation in this space: (1) Olympic-sport governance entities, including SafeSport and NGBs like USEF, are not state actors under San Francisco Arts & Athletics, Inc. v. USOC absent materially different facts; and (2) structural claims such as private non-delegation will not be reached without a concrete, traceable, redressable injury that keeps a justiciable “case or controversy” alive.