A group of former college football players has sued the NCAA, claiming it sacrificed the safety and well-being of student athletes “in favor of profits and self-promotion.”
As has been the case with most of the lawsuits against the NCAA, the plaintiffs, who are being represented by Fort Worth, Texas-based attorney Vincent Circelli, staked their argument to the fact that the NCAA knew about the dangers of concussions for decades and yet it allegedly failed to implement and enforce regulations that would protect athletes from those risks.
The lead plaintiff in the litigation, which also names the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference as a defendant, is Jeffrey Williams. Williams played football for Anderson University in the early 1990s. During his playing career, he allegedly “suffered numerous concussions … and is now suffering from several symptoms indicative of long-term brain and neurocognitive injuries.”
Circelli told Concussion Litigation Reporter that many of the more recent claims, like the one he is bringing, are seeking funds for damages or treatment, which was not included in the NCAA’s $75 million settlement of another class-action concussions case. That money is being allotted for a 50-year, $70 million medical monitoring program for college athletes as well as a new $5 million program “to research the prevention, treatment, and/or effects of concussions.”
Circelli noted that “The founding principle was protecting player safety. With the advent of TV dollars and huge ticket revenues and everything else, the NCAA lost its way and lost its purpose and put those big hits and big money TV deals ahead of player safety.”
Meanwhile, the lawsuit claims, the NCAA became aware “by the early-1990s at the latest” that concussions were becoming a problem.
“Despite this knowledge, the NCAA and its member conferences suppressed and kept secret from student athlete’s information about the extent of concussion injuries in NCAA college football and their long-term consequences,” according to the complaint.
The NCAA’s defense in such matters has been that the lawsuits fail to state a claim against the NCAA upon which relief may be granted and that it owed no legal duty to the plaintiffs, who voluntarily participated in football and assumed the risk or injury that is inherent in the sport.
Circelli and his firm (https://www.cwylaw.com/) has filed several other lawsuits against the NCAA on behalf of players who suffered concussions.
