More concussion lawsuits filed vs. schools and NCAA
Former football players filed a total of six lawsuits against various schools and the NCAA on Tuesday regarding alleged negligence towards head injuries.
According to the New York Times, Penn State, Vanderbilt, the Big Ten, SEC and Pac-12 are named in the lawsuits. The filings follow a class-action suit against the NCAA from former athletes about head injuries. Multiple lawsuits were compiled into a class-action suit and the suit did not prevent future suits.
Auburn, Georgia, Oregon and Utah are the other universities targeted, though only their conferences are named defendants, along with the N.C.A.A., because of liability complications at some public institutions. The plaintiffs had careers that spanned the decades before the N.C.A.A. began requiring its members to have concussion protocols in 2010; in one case, the player competed in the 1970s. According to the filings, the players sustained concussions in college and now have a variety of health problems, including mood swings, depression and sleeplessness.
The class-action suit included players from multiple sports. The latest lawsuits pertain only to football.
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A settlement in the class-action suit was given initial approval by a federal judge in January after a previous rejection. As part of the judge’s approval, the NCAA’s immunity against suits like these were not given. Money would be put into a fund to monitor former college athletes as part of the settlement as well as additional protocols for head injuries for current college athletes – though no payouts to former players would be given.
Adrian Arrington, the first former football player to file a suit against the NCAA, said he was against the possible settlement in 2015 because it “doesn’t address the reasons I filed the lawsuit in the first place.”
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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
