NCAA Faces 6 New Head Injury Class Action Lawsuits

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On Tuesday, the National Collegiate Athletic Association and several athletic conferences were hit with a total of six class action lawsuits filed by former college football players who claim the NCAA and conferences failed to protect student-athletes from the danger of repeated head injuries.

The head injury class action lawsuits were filed against the NCAA, Southeastern Conference, Big Ten Conference, Pac-12 Conference, the Western Athletic Conference and several schools including Vanderbilt University and Penn State.

Named plaintiffs in the NCAA head injury class action lawsuits include Robert Samuels, James Boyd, Eric Ravotti, Daniel Lee Cook, Joseph Miller, Richard Seals, Brandon Walthour and Ronald W. Hermann II.

According to the NCAA class action lawsuits, the plaintiffs are seeking to “obtain redress” for the defendants’ “reckess disregard for the health and safety of generation” of student-athletes across the country, including Penn State, Vanderbilt, University of Oregon, University of Georgia, University of Utah and Auburn University.

The plaintiffs claim that football is “America’s sport” and that nearly 100,000 student-athletes sign up to compete in college football each year. According to the NCAA head injury class action lawsuits, the players are told to do whatever it takes to win. However, the NCAA, associated conferences and universities “kept their players and the public in the dark about an epidemic that was slowly killing their athletes,” the plaintiffs allege.

“During the course of a college football season, athletes can receive more than 1,000 impacts greater than 10g’s (gravitational force) and, worse yet, the majority of football-related hits to the head exceed 20g’s,” the head injury class action lawsuits state.

“To put this in perspective, if you drove your car into a wall at twenty-five miles per hour and you weren’t wearing a seatbelt, the force of you hitting your windshield would be around 100g’s,” the NCAA class action lawsuits continue. “That means each season these 18, 19, and 20 year old student-athletes are being subjected to the equivalent of several hundred car accidents per season.”

These repeated head injuries and concussions have significantly increased the risk that the NCAA football players will experience long-term brain injuries, including but not limited to memory loss, depression, dementia, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) and Parkinson’s disease.

The former NCAA football players claim that the defendants had a duty to protect their student-athletes from long-term brain injuries. According to the NCAA head injury class action lawsuit, the defendants breached their duties to student-athletes by failing to implement up-to-date guidelines regarding the evaluation and treatment of head injuries sustained during practice and games.

The NCAA football class action lawsuits assert claims for breach of contract, negligence, fraudulent concealment and unjust enrichment.

The plaintiffs are represented by Jay Edelson, Benjamin H. Richman, Benjamin S. Thomassen, Tom M. Logan and Rafey S. Balabanian of Edelson PC, Jeff Raizner of Raizner Slania LLP and John Driscoll of The Driscoll Firm PC.

Plaintiff Miller is also represented by William Winningham of Wilson Kehoe Winningham LLC, Walthour is represented by David P. Healy of Dudley Sellers Healy & Heath PLLC, and Seals is represented by Mark F. James of Hatch James & Dodge PC.

The NCAA Head Injury Class Action Lawsuits are Miller v. Southeastern Conference, et al., Case No. 1:16-cv-01222, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana; Walthour v. Vanderbilt University, et al., Case No. 6:16-cv-00834, in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida; Hermann II v. Southeastern Conference, et al., Case No. 2:16-cv-01042, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California; Seals v. Western Athletic Conference, et al., Case No. 2:16-cv-00412, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah; Samuels, et al. v. The Pennsylvania State University, et al., Case No. 1:16-cv-05270, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois; and Cook v. Pac-12 Conference, et al., Case No. 3:16-cv-02630, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.