Several former National Football League players have sued the NFL Players Association and three of the union’s former presidents, claiming that the defendants withheld information about the dangers of concussions.
Plaintiffs Neil Smith, Ladell Betts, Anthony Davis, Christian Ballard and Gregory Westbrooks filed the lawsuit, which names Trace Armstrong, Troy Vincent and Kevin Mawae as individual defendants, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.
The plaintiffs claimed in their lawsuit that the defendants “withheld information” from them “about the risks of head injuries.”
They are seeking “medical monitoring and financial compensation for long-term chronic injuries, financial losses, expenses and intangible losses suffered as a result of the NFLPA’s intentional and negligent tortious misconduct.”
The plaintiffs are represented by The Regan Law Firm, Shaffer Lombardo Shurin, Langdon & Emison and Yonke Law LLC, all of which are Kansas City-based law firms.
The attorneys argued in the complaint that “the NFLPA has been aware of the evidence linking repetitive traumatic brain injuries (TBI) to long-term neurological problems for decades, but it deliberately ignored the risks to players and failed to communicate this critical information to them and to the general public.”
To the latter point, it highlights the comments of DeMaurice Smith, executive director of the NFLPA, who told Congress in 2009 that “for far too long, our former players were left adrift (and) we were complicit in the lack of leadership and accountability but that ends now.” At further hearings before the House Judiciary Committee, Smith testified “there is simply no justification for the NFL to have previously ignored or discredited” the body of research available to that point, according to the attorneys.
Bob Langdon, attorney for Langdon & Emison, suggested that “in the truest sense of the word, the NFLPA is not a union because a union looks after its members. NFL players could have avoided or mitigated the dangers of their sport had the NFLPA provided them with truthful and accurate information.”
They further sought to connect the fact that the plaintiffs “paid thousands of dollars in dues to the NFLPA. The NFLPA, through its representatives and agents, assured players that it would protect their best interests and owed to its members a fiduciary duty.” Attorney Kevin Regan concluded that “the NFLPA did not do enough to protect its members from traumatic brain injury.”
In the complaint, the plaintiffs alleged that “the NFLPA … at all times … has had unparalleled access to and knowledge of data relating to the relationship between head impacts on football players and cognitive decline. This access to and knowledge of data comes from the NFLPA’s awareness of the growing body of scientific literature on the subject, its own medical consultants, its own requested or commissioned studies on the subject, its participation in the Retirement Board of the Bert Bell/Pete Rozelle NFL Player Retirement Plan (Retirement Board), and its participation in the Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Committee (the MTBI Committee).”
The union, according to the plaintiffs, went beyond a failure to inform, but actually “instead deliberately concealed the results of the studies that had been commissioned for the players’ protection. The NFLPA supplied false and misleading information regarding the risk of harm and engaged in a long-running course of fraudulent and negligent conduct.
Rick Lombardo of Shaffer Lombardo Shurin added that “the NFLPA received and paid for advice from medical consultants regarding health risks associated with playing football, including the health risks associated with concussive and sub-concussive injuries. When presented with information from such medical consultants regarding the health risks associated with these types of injuries, the NFLPA ignored, concealed and turned a blind eye to such information. These individuals should not be asked to pay the costs for the players association’s negligence.”
The NFLPA vehemently disputed the latter points in a statement:
“It erroneously alleges that the NFLPA knowingly and fraudulently concealed from players the risks of head injuries players faced by playing in NFL games and practices over the last several decades,” the NFLPA said in a statement. “This lawsuit has no merit and we will defend our union and our past Presidents. The NFLPA has made the health and safety of its members a priority and the advancements in professional football on concussion education, prevention and treatment are a result of our efforts.”
The case is Ballard v. NFL Football League, 14-cv-01267, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Missouri (St. Louis).
