NFL Tries to Dismiss Players’ Helmet Safety Class Action Lawsuit

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The National Football League asked a federal judge last week to dismiss a class action lawsuit seeking medical monitoring for all current and former NFL players over allegations the league conspired with team staffers to conceal the long-term brain-injury risk associated by the NFL’s “lax head-safety” approach.

According to the NFL class action lawsuit, the league “turned a blind eye” for the last four decades as coaches encouraged players to keep fans “excited and interested in the violence” of the sport by using helmets as “on-field weapons.”

The class action lawsuit also accuses the NFL of conspiring to conceal “clear evidence” that their passive approach to helmet use and concussions resulted in severe long-term damage to NFL players, including headaches, dizziness, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. The NFL has known about the high risk of post-traumatic brain injury in its players since the early 1970s, but continues to deny and “actively conceal” any connection or correlation between players suffering concussions and long-term chronic brain injury or illness, the NFL helmet class action lawsuit says.

When the NFL finally made hitting with a helmet a personal foul and a fineable offense in 1996, “its purpose was not to protect the player using the helmet but rather to protect the quarterbacks,” says the NFL concussion class action lawsuit. The NFL not only failed to prevent on-field concussions, but also “failed to take reasonable steps to develop appropriate and necessary guidelines to recognize, diagnose and treat players with concussions” and to develop a satisfactory “return-to-play” policy that would keep concussed players off the field until they could safely return.

Seven former players, including Super Bowl-winning quarterback Jim McMahon, filed the NFL helmet class action lawsuit, which is asking the NFL to pay for medical monitoring for all current and former players to screen for brain disorders like Alzheimer’s.

The NFL fired back last week, asking the court to dismiss the case on the grounds that an “increased risk of concussions” is not a “proven hazardous substance,” which must be proven for medical monitoring claims. The law “permits medical monitoring claims only on the basis of exposure to a tangible, harmful substance that physically enters the body,” the NFL said.

The league also moved to dismiss on the grounds that the named retirees do not have standing to demand medical monitoring for current NFL players.

A scheduling conference is set for November 21.

The case is Charles Ray Easterling, et al. v. National Football League Inc., Case No. 11-cv-05209-AB, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

UPDATE 1: The NFL agreed to pay $765 million to resolve the class action lawsuit. The proposed NFL concussion settlement must still be approved by a federal judge.

UPDATE 2: The NFL announced June 25, 2014 that it has reached a revised class action settlement agreement that removes the $765 million compensation cap, making approval of the deal likely.