Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), three words that have changed the game of football forever, three words that have come to haunt the NFL. CTE is a condition known to develop in football payers who sustain multiple concussions without proper treatment. Players who have sustained such injuries have taken the NFL to court and sought damages for their suffering and medical costs, but the professional sports league isn’t the only organization under fire from the victims of CTE.
Does The NCAA Have To Worry About Concussion Lawsuits Too?
College football just happens to be one of America’s favorite pastimes as well, but the organizing body of college football-the NCAA-is finding itself in the same hot water as the NFL. Former NCAA players are discovering that they have CTE, and they are bringing these discoveries to court.
Most recently, the NCAA settled a CTE lawsuit for $75 million, but the settlement wasn’t as big a win as many had hoped. Most of the funds from this settlement were set aside for testing former players for CTE and for concussion research. However, none of the former players were compensated for their medical costs or suffering.
CTE diagnosed players can deal with a range of subsequent symptoms-which include tremors, mood changes, depression and memory loss. The expense of dealing with these burdens can often be astronomical, and at least one former player from the University of Georgia wants justice for the suffering he has been through. This former UGA athlete has joined a fresh group of lawsuits that have been filed against the NCAA. These new class action suits are meant to seek damages for those who played 50-60 years before the NCAA established return-to-play protocols in 2010 to fight concussion injuries.
For now, UGA is not a defendant in these cases, though universities like Penn State and playing conferences like the SEC, have been named in some of the suits. However, as more lawsuits are expected to be filed, more universities could become a part of what analysts are describing as the “wave of concussion litigation.”