The latest in a string of head injury lawsuits to hit the National Football League was recently filed on November 21, 2016 in federal court in the Southern District of Florida.
As awareness of the long-term head injuries arises, so does litigation against professional sports teams in recent years with especially high-profile cases brought against the NFL. In this most recent iteration, 38 named former NFL players have sued on behalf of a group of 141 retired players seeking workers’ compensation benefits for chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) which they allege was an occupational disease arising out of repeated head injuries while playing football.
The lawsuit names the NFL and all 32 individual teams individually and seeks damages for loss of consortium and declaratory relief, including that the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement and state workers’ compensation laws accept CTE as compensable condition. The players allege that the NFL failed to adequately warn them about the risks of concussions and head injuries and actively hid those risks from players. Players also cited new scientific evidence suggesting that more players than those covered by the NFL’s landmark settlement of a class action lawsuit in 2015 are at risk or have already contracted CTE.