By Holt Hackney
A Dallas County jury has ordered the NCAA to pay $140 million to the family of former Southern Methodist University football player John Thomas “J.T.” Davis, concluding that the organization was negligent in failing to warn him about the long-term neurological risks associated with repetitive head trauma during his college football career in the 1950s.
The verdict, which includes $30 million in compensatory damages and $110 million in punitive damages, marks one of the most significant legal judgments against the NCAA related to concussion and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, claims.
Davis played as a lineman for SMU from 1955 to 1959 before going on to a career as a teacher and coach. According to court filings, Davis suffered for decades from headaches, memory loss, paranoia, anxiety, motor impairment and psychotic episodes. Following his death, an autopsy conducted at Boston University reportedly found that he suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and Stage IV CTE.
The lawsuit, originally filed in March 2020 by Davis’ estate, alleged the NCAA breached its duty of care by failing to educate players about concussion-related dangers, establish protective rules and require neurological baseline testing despite what plaintiffs argued was longstanding knowledge of brain trauma risks. The complaint asserted the NCAA’s own medical guidance and constitutional obligations required it to prioritize athlete welfare.
During trial, plaintiffs introduced internal NCAA documents they argued demonstrated awareness dating back to the 1930s of progressive neurodegenerative risks linked to football participation. Attorneys for Davis’ family argued the NCAA ignored mounting evidence while allowing athletes to continue playing without informed consent regarding long-term health consequences.
John Mark Davis, the player’s son, testified that his father’s decline devastated the family physically, emotionally and financially.
“Players like my dad should have been warned about the risks of playing college football, and the NCAA should have done more to study the issue,” John Mark Davis said following the verdict.
The plaintiffs were represented by Bill Horton, D’Arcy Rapp, Jim Hartle, Gabriela Lopez-Ruperto, and Justin Shrader of Shrader and Associates LLP in Houston, Texas.
The NCAA, represented by Victor Vital, Lauren Brogdon, Julia Peebles, and Chelby Sterling of Haynes and Boone, Christopher Schmidt and Grant Glazebrook of Bryan Cave, and Jeff Levinger of Levinger PC, strongly rejected the verdict and signaled plans for continued legal challenges.
“The NCAA expresses its deepest sympathies to the Davis family, but we respectfully disagree with the jury’s verdict,” the NCAA said. “The evidence that was presented was largely based on the knowledge and science as it exists today, rather than what was known by the parties in the 1950s when Mr. Davis played college football.
“The NCAA continues to actively enhance player safety in college athletics in its role as an athletic association. While the NCAA is not a medical body, it is at the forefront of funding the largest, independent study on the natural history of concussions in sports such as football. The NCAA will continue to aggressively defend against cases like this one. We will pursue all legal options in this case, including an appeal.”
The NCAA argued during proceedings that scientific certainty around CTE’s causation and symptoms remains disputed and maintained that applying modern medical understanding to historical conduct was legally inappropriate.
On the heels of other recent losses for the NCAA in concussion litigation, the case could have implications for future sports-related brain injury litigation, especially involving former collegiate athletes whose playing careers predated modern concussion protocols.
The Davis case contributes to mounting scrutiny over institutional responsibility in contact sports and may intensify pressure on governing bodies to address historical player safety failures more aggressively.
For the Davis family, however, the verdict represented long-awaited accountability for a tragedy they argue could have been mitigated had stronger warnings and protections been in place decades earlier.
