Lawyers Suit Up To Take On N.F.L. About Players' Head Injuries

Just when you think the Ivy League has grabbed the headlines upping the ante with rules limiting practices to decrease concussions and head injuries, Ken Belson and Alan Schwarz writing for the NYTimes, "Concussion Treatment Cited in Suit Against N.F.L.", report on a suit recently filed in Los Angeles Superior Court by retired football players.  Excerpt.

"The suit, filed in Superior Court in Los Angeles, is the first legal action to center on how the N.F.L., while evidence steadily mounted in medical journals and elsewhere, took until 2010 to unequivocally warn players about how concussions could have effects on brain function long after they retired.

The suit contends that the league failed “to regulate practices, games, equipment and medical care so as to minimize the long-term risks associated with concussive brain injuries.” It took particular aim at how the N.F.L.’s medical committee on concussions, formed in 1994, published a steady string of studies claiming that concussions had no long-term effects on professional football players."

For those of us who have tackled the issue of helmet injuries, there is some degree of satisfaction that Riddell, the football helmet manufacturer, was also named as a defendant.

While there have been changes in protocol over the past several years about informing, preventing and treating head concussions, this is the first case with fighting words.  Excerpt.

“The Defendants acted with callous indifference to the rights and duties owed to Plaintiffs, all American Rules Football leagues and players and the public at large,” the lawsuit says. “The Defendants acted willfully, wantonly, egregiously, with reckless abandon and with a high degree of moral culpability.”

Thomas V. Girardi, one of the lawyers for the players, compared their injuries to those suffered by soldiers in wars.

“They’re diminished and they’re not respected as injuries,” he said. “You can’t get hit in the head this many times without causing a problem. You have very subtle injuries that manifest themselves, and there is no question that these young people are injured.”

Let's watch what happens.  The expectation is what starts at the top can trickle down so even the PeeWee players get protected.