Former NHL Hockey Players File Class Action Lawsuit Over Concussions

Top Class Actions’s website and social media posts use affiliate links. If you make a purchase using such links, we may receive a commission, but it will not result in any additional charges to you. Please review our Affiliate Link Disclosure for more information.

Ten former players of the National Hockey League (NHL) have filed a class action lawsuit, alleging that the league has not done enough to protects its players from concussions. The players are also seeking for court-approved medical monitoring for their brain trauma and injuries, which they claim is due to their past NHL careers.

“Every blow to the head is dangerous. Both repeated concussions and sub-concussions cause permanent brain damage. During practice and games,  a player can sustain close to one thousand or more hits to the head in one season without any documented incapacitating concussion,” the class action lawsuit states. “Such repeated blows result in permanently impaired brain function.”

The class action lawsuit stressed that while scientific evidence has linked brain injuries with long-term neurological problems for years, the NHL did not inform them on the dangers of repeated brain trauma and the risk for chronic neuro-cognitive illness and disabilities, which can manifest even after their NHL careers.

The players claimed that despite the mounting evidences on brain injuries, “the NHL took no remedial action to prevent its players from unnecessary harm until 1997 when it created a concussion program. The class action lawsuit alleges that even with the program, the NHL did nothing to protect its players from unnecessary harm until 2010 when “it modified its so-called Rule 48 regarding body checking, a modification that according to a 2013 article published by University of Toronto researchers had essentially no effect on the rate of concussion suffered by NHL players during the three seasons in which the proposed safety measure was in place.”

The class action lawsuit says the NHL caused and contributed to the injuries and increased risks by: (1) ignoring the true risks of concussive events, sub-concussive events and brain injuries suffered by NHL hockey players; (2) failing to disclose the true risks of repetitive brain injuries to NHL; (3) refusing to address the issue of brain damage; (4) refusing to amend its rules and procedures and equipment requirements to protect its players.

The players also accused the NHL of “refusing to ban fighting and body checking and by continuing to employ hockey players whose main function is to fight or violently body check players on the other team.”

The plaintiffs are seeking for compensatory damages, punitive damages, prejudgment interest, costs and attorneys’ fees and other relief which the court may deem appropriate.

This NHL Concussion Class Action Lawsuit is Gary Leeman, Bradley Aitken, Darren Banks, Curt Bennett, Richard Dunn, Warren Holmes, Robert Manno, Blair James Stewart, Morris Titanic and Richard Vaive on their behalf and others similarly situated v. National Hockey League, NHL Board of Governors, Case No. 13-CV-1856 In The United States District Court for The District of Columbia.