2,000 Former NFL Players Combine Head Injury Lawsuits

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: A federal judge rejected preliminary approval of the proposed NFL concussion class action settlement on Jan. 14, 2014, expressing fears that it may not be enough.

More than 80 lawsuits representing approximately 2,000 former NFL players have been consolidated into one master lawsuit accusing the league of hiding information about the risks associated with concussions.The NFL players allege in the consolidated lawsuit that the NFL deliberately and fraudulently concealed the risk of brain injury from players while marketing the ferocity and brutality of the game. The master complaint highlights increasing concern over the dangers of concussions following the suicides of former NFL players such as Junior Seau and Ray Easterling this year, and Dave Duerson last year.Among those suing the NFL is the widow of Easterling, as well as Kevin Turner, a former Philadelphia Eagles running back who suffers from Lou Gehrig’s disease, which he believes was caused by injuries sustained while playing in the NFL.

Ray Easterling filed a class action lawsuit against the NFL in 2011 seeking medical monitoring for all current and former NFL players who were put in danger by the league’s “lax head-safety” approach. Easterling committed suicide in April after being diagnosed with dementia following 20 years of depression and insomnia, his widow said.

Nearly 2,000 NFL players are seeking unspecified financial compensation for fraud, misrepresentation and negligence against the NFL. The lawsuit, which will allow other players to join, also names NFL helmet maker Riddell, Inc. and affiliated companies such as parent corporation Easton-Bell Sports, Inc. as Defendants.

“The NFL and its agents continued to market, as it had in the past, the ferocity and brutality of the sport that, in part, gives rise to the latent and debilitating neurocognitive conditions and injuries from which plaintiffs suffer,” the NFL brain injury lawsuit says.

The lawsuit says that even after the NFL formed its own Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Committee in 1994 to study the impact of concussions and sub-concussive injuries on players, the league failed to inform players of the risks.

“For 16 years, the NFL actively and continuously denied any link between MTBI … and the neurological symptoms and problems (such as headaches, dizziness, loss of memory, dementia and ALS) from which they (players) now suffer,” the NFL brain injury lawsuit said.

The NFL called the lawsuit groundless and said it has created “numerous extensive benefits programs” for former players, including one that has disbursed $17.5 million to more than 200 players and their families.