The Ed O’Bannon antitrust case against the NCAA — already uncommon in generating competing requests for hearing by the Supreme Court — has taken another unusual turn in its filings with the high court.

Lawyers for the O’Bannon plaintiffs recently submitted a brief in which they agreed with the NCAA’s argument that the court should consider whether the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals properly applied a 1984 Supreme Court ruling that the association historically has relied on in defending its amateurism system.

…

It’s “uncommon, but not super-rare” for both sides in a case to ask for Supreme Court review, said Jeffrey Fisher, a Stanford Law School professor who is co-director of its Supreme Court Litigation Clinic and has argued nearly 30 cases before the high court. “It’s considerably more uncommon for both sides to urge the court to take the same question. What the plaintiffs are doing is not unheard-of, but it only happens a handful of times” a year.

Fisher said such situations rise from “sides representing a cause who want a universally applicable precedent that decides an issue once and for all.”