Lawsuits Filed Against NCAA for College Football Players with CTE
Last Updated on March 29, 2024
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At A Glance
- This Alert Affects:
- Families of former college football players who were diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
- What’s Going On?
- The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is facing lawsuits that claim the organization’s negligence caused football players to develop degenerative brain disease, including CTE, later in life.
- How a Lawsuit Could Help
- A lawsuit could provide a family with money for medical bills, funeral expenses and more.
- What Does This Cost?
- It doesn’t cost anything to speak to an attorney.
If your loved one played college football and was diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) following his death, you may be able to file a lawsuit against the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to recover money for funeral expenses, medical bills, and other damages. Read on for more.
Why Is the NCAA Being Sued?
The NCAA is facing a number of lawsuits that allege it didn’t take the proper steps to protect college athletes from the risk of “later-in-life” degenerative brain disease.
These suits are mostly being filed by families of deceased former athletes who allege their loved ones developed CTE – a disease that can only be diagnosed post-mortem – as a result of taking multiple concussive hits during their college football careers.
Specifically, the suits say that NCAA “kept critical information in the dark” as it knew about the “grave consequences” that could develop decades after an athlete’s college career ended. The organization was also aware, the lawsuits claim, about the concussion management and return-to-play protocols it needed to institute to protect players, but “chose not to” enact these rules. Had the NCAA passed along its information to schools and student athletes, repetitive head trauma during practice and games “would have been minimized or altogether prevented,” the suits claim.
How Could a Lawsuit Help?
A lawsuit could help families of former college athletes collect money for:
- Funeral expenses
- Medical bills
- Loss of expected earnings
- Loss of companionship
Wasn’t There Already a Settlement Against the NCAA?
In 2016, the NCAA agreed to settle a class action lawsuit that alleged the organization failed in its duty to adopt appropriate rules to protect athletes from the risks associated with concussions and to manage those risks.
The settlement, however, only provided for medical monitoring services to screen former football and soccer players for symptoms related to post-concussion syndrome or mid- to late-life degenerative brain disease, such as CTE. The fund did not provide compensation to those who had already developed symptoms of CTE or who died as a result.
Separate and individual lawsuits are now being filed on these players’ behalf.
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