By KEN BELSON and ALAN SCHWARZ
Published: July 20, 2011
A group of 75 retired N.F.L. veterans sued the league in a California court on Tuesday, alleging that N.F.L. teams’ mismanagement of their concussions, and the league’s willful concealment of evidence of the long-term effects of head injuries, led to the players’ current brain damage.
The suit, filed in Superior Court in Los Angeles, is the first legal action to center on how the N.F.L., while evidence steadily mounted in medical journals and elsewhere, took until 2010 to unequivocally warn players about how concussions could have effects on brain function long after they retired.
The suit contends that the league failed “to regulate practices, games, equipment and medical care so as to minimize the long-term risks associated with concussive brain injuries.” It took particular aim at how the N.F.L.’s medical committee on concussions, formed in 1994, published a steady string of studies claiming that concussions had no long-term effects on professional football players.
The plaintiffs include many players who were active in the 1980s, including Mark Duper, a star wide receiver for the Miami Dolphins; Ottis Anderson, who played for the Giants; and Vernon Dean, who played with the Washington Redskins.
The players claim they sustained multiple concussions that were improperly diagnosed by team medical personnel, leading to short-term memory loss, headaches, vision problems and other ailments. The suit seeks an unspecified amount of damages above the jurisdictional minimum of $25,000.
The N.F.L. spokesman Greg Aiello said the league “will vigorously contest any claims of this kind.” Riddell, the football helmet manufacturer that was named as a co-defendant, said in a statement, “We have not yet reviewed the complaint, but it is our policy to not comment on pending litigation.”
The lawsuit was filed just as the N.F.L.’s four-month lockout appeared near its end with the ratification of a 10-year collective bargaining agreement. The deal centers on how to split the $9 billion in revenue the league generates each season, but also includes some measures designed to decrease brain trauma during off-season workouts.
That would become only the latest of many changes in protocol since members of a Congressional committee in October 2009 compared the league’s handling of concussions to the tobacco industry. The N.F.L. has since required that any player even suspected of a concussion be removed from the game or practice for the rest of that day, and allowed to return only after being cleared by an independent expert.
Before last season, a poster was placed in every team’s locker room alerting players to how concussions could lead to depression and early onset of dementia and “can change your life and your family’s life forever.”
This was in stark contrast to a pamphlet the league began giving players in 2007 that, all but quoting its committee’s research papers, said, “Current research with professional athletes has not shown that having more than one or two concussions leads to permanent problems if each injury is treated properly.” It left open the question of “if there are any long-term effects of concussion in N.F.L. athletes.”
Many of the lawsuit’s defendants retired long before the formation of the committee in 1994, let alone the publication of those statements. The lawsuit alleges that the league still should have known about the dangers of concussions during the eras in which the men played, because of numerous medical papers published on the subject.
“The Defendants acted with callous indifference to the rights and duties owed to Plaintiffs, all American Rules Football leagues and players and the public at large,” the lawsuit says. “The Defendants acted willfully, wantonly, egregiously, with reckless abandon and with a high degree of moral culpability.”
Thomas V. Girardi, one of the lawyers for the players, compared their injuries to those suffered by soldiers in wars.
“They’re diminished and they’re not respected as injuries,” he said. “You can’t get hit in the head this many times without causing a problem. You have very subtle injuries that manifest themselves, and there is no question that these young people are injured.”
In an effort to minimize potential head injuries, the league and players have been discussing in their negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement a number of proposals aimed at making the game safer by reducing the number of opportunities for potential head injuries.
The proposed changes include virtually eliminating traditional two-a-day practices in training camp, reducing the number of so-called organized team activities to 9, from 14, and delaying the start of those off-season activities by several weeks, to late April or early May.
In the past, teams held many on-field “quarterback schools” and “voluntary camps” in April or March.
The players association has pushed for a shorter and less intense off-season workout schedule to reduce the chances of injury. It is unclear how much the team owners will have given up if they agree to these proposals because they make little or no money from these activities.
These changes would presumably not address head injuries sustained during the regular season. And players, particularly those fighting to stay on the team or earn a new contract, will continue to have incentive to hide concussions from medical personnel.
Mike Westhoff, the Jets’ special teams coach, said that he was in favor of the changes and that they would not change or decrease the aggressiveness of the game.
“It’s our responsibility to control the collision while preparing them for the speed and tempo of the game as it is played on Sunday,” Westhoff said. “This is football, so you cannot have walkthroughs in shorts all week and then line up on Sunday.”
Mike Tanier contributed reporting.