NCAA Concussion Class Action Settlement Could Include Medical Monitoring

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NCAA athletes involved in a massive class action lawsuit against the collegiate athletic association over concussion injuries could be receiving medical monitoring as part of a class action settlement deal being negotiated between the plaintiff’s attorneys and the NCAA, according to filings with an Illinois federal court Friday.

In a May 9 filing with the court considering the NCAA concussion class action lawsuit, seeking to be named lead counsel, Steve Berman of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP stated that his firm and plaintiffs’ firm Siprut PC have been negotiating for 10 months with the NCAA, and in February were able to agree upon a term sheet regarding the establishment of the medical monitoring program.

The multidistrict litigation concerns claims made throughout the last decade that the NCAA was negligent in its “failure to implement regulations that would protect student-athletes from the risks associated with concussions and/or manage those risks to properly to the medically proven fact that repeat concussions would lead to neurocognitive injuries in many players.”

The filing went on to detail the work the attorneys had put into the NCAA class action lawsuit settlement. “From 2011 through January 31, 2014, Hagens Berman has invested more than 8,000 hours and invested more than $400,000 in out-of-pocket costs on a wholly contingent basis,” including more than two dozen meetings with defense counsel and third parties, the reviewing of over 200,000 pages of documents, 10 depositions, a number of filings on various matters, and the partial achievement of the goal of the class action lawsuits, medical monitoring for the former athletes who suffered concussions.

“…Hagens Berman has engaged in 10 months of settlement negotiations with the NCAA, resulting in a Term Sheet dated Feb. 7, 2014 that will provide a medical monitoring program to all current and former student-athletes,” stated the filing. The medical monitoring, which has been in negotiations since the term sheet was agreed upon, would “ensure that appropriate cognitive, mood, behavioral and movement disorder testing was considered for purposes of inclusion in any medical monitoring program.”

The proposal is that Berman and Siprut would serve as lead counsel for the medical monitoring class; Richard Lewis of Hausfeld LLP would be special class counsel for monitoring relief; and an executive committee would be formed, composed of Charles Zimmerman of Zimmerman Reed, James R. Dugan II of The Dugan Law Firm and Mark Zamora of The Orlando Firm.

In December, the NCAA concussion class action lawsuits were consolidated. The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Legislation ruled that the Northern District of Illinois, where a class action lawsuit was filed by former Eastern Illinois University football player Adrian Arrington, would be the most appropriate transferee for the centralized case, preferable to the Southern District of Indiana. Chris Walker, former University of Tennessee defensive end, who filed a class action lawsuit against the NCAA in Tennessee in September, and argued that Indiana would be a better location.

Because the Arrington case had been proceeding since 2011, a longer period of time than the Walker case, the JPML found Illinois more appropriate.

The Arrington plaintiffs are represented by Steve Berman, Elizabeth Fegan, Daniel Kurowski and Thomas Ahlering of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP and Joseph Siprut of Siprut PC.

The NCAA Concussion MDL is In Re: National Collegiate Athletic Association Student-Athlete Concussion Injury Litigation, Case No. 2492, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

UPDATE: On July 29, 2014, the NCAA entered a $75 million class action settlement to resolve the litigation. The NCAA concussion settlement must be approved by the Court.

UPDATE 2: On Dec. 17, 2014, a judge rejected the $75 million NCAA concussion class action settlement, finding that the deal was unfair. He sent the parties back for further negotiation.