Former Detroit Lions running back Jahvid Best has sued the NFL and helmet maker Riddell after a series of concussions prematurely ended his professional football career.
Best claimed in an 86-page complaint in Wayne County Circuit Court that the league knew about the risk of concussion and did little to protect him.
As for Riddell, Best claims the company marketed its Revolution helmet, which he wore while playing for the Lions, as a way to reduce the risk of concussions. This was a misleading claim, he alleged.
Best played college football at the University of California, where he reportedly suffered two concussions. A first-round draft pick of the Lions in 2010, Best suffered three concussions as a professional, the last in his second season in October 2011.
One of the interesting components of the lawsuit is that Best contends that he shouldn’t have been eligible for the 2010 draft because of his history of concussions at Cal, including this one:
The NFL has never had a rule preventing players who had suffered multiple concussions in college from being taken in the draft,but it may be an idea whose time has come.
In the 2012 draft, Stanford’s highly regarded wide receiver Chris Owusu, who had three concussions in college, was not drafted. Teams passed on him even though he had been reportedly cleared by Dr. Mitchel Berger, who chairs the neurosurgery department at the University of California at San Francisco and serves on the NFL’s Head, Neck and Spine Committee, before the draft.
The practice of being cautious of drafting players with a history of concussions was reinforced in the 2013 draft when the Arizona Cardinals selected Texas A&M wide receiver Ryan Swoope in the 6th round, only to see Swoope, who had a history of concussions in college, retire after suffering a concussion in the NFL pre-season. On paper, Swoope might have gone in the second or third round, given his numbers at the NFL combine.
Anticipating Future Medical Problems
As for Best, his attorney, Bret Schnitzer, told the Detroit Free Press that he was “not prepared to give a specific amount” as to what his client is seeking.
“Unfortunately, with these types of injuries, as has been documented, the long-term effects of the injuries to the brain may not manifest themselves for a number of years,” he told the paper. “Jahvid, obviously, had some manifestation of concussion syndrome, which is well-documented in the media. But in terms of the full extent of the injury to the brain, as we can see from other players and from the science, that can’t always be determined in a 25-year-old. It’s just like mesothelioma or asbestos type of case … it sometimes takes decades to see the full ramifications of the injury.”
Joseph M. Hanna of Goldberg Segalla said that “Best’s lawsuit appears to be the first proactive suit of its kind, as he is not claiming to currently suffer from some of the more serious head trauma-related ailments (such as dementia or Alzheimer’s), which plague his ex-NFL counterparts.”
Best has not named the Lions in a negligence lawsuit because Michigan’s workers’ compensation law precludes him from suing the team directly for an on the job injury, unless the Lions committed an intentional tort. However, he has filed a worker’s-compensation claim against the team.
