Lawsuit alleges PIAA failed to protect students from concussions
Posted: December 11, 2015 Filed under: Concussions, High School, Lawsuit, Player Safety | Tags: Concussions, high school sports, player safety, Safety Tag Leave a comment »By JASON CATO
Many of Pennsylvania’s 350,000 junior and senior high school athletes likely have experienced severe concussions and the kind of lingering effects three Lawrence County high school athletes had to endure, according to a class-action lawsuit claiming negligence against the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association.
Two former student athletes at Neshannock High School and the father of a senior at Ellwood City sued the PIAA in Lawrence County Common Pleas Court late Thursday alleging the governing body did little to protect them from or help them with concussions suffered while playing high school sports.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified monetary damages on behalf of Jonathan Hites and Kaela Zingaro, both New Castle residents and 2014 Neshannock graduates, and Domenic Teolis, 17, of Ellwood City.
The head of the state’s governing body over school sports vowed to fight the allegations vigorously, and one legal expert said the PIAA will prevail.
“This lawsuit will lose,” said Hosea Harvey, a Temple University law school professor with expertise in youth sports law. “They are actually undermining the issue of student safety in Pennsylvania.”
Neither Hites nor Zingaro nor their families could be reached for comment. Samuel Teolis, listed as a plaintiff because his son is a minor, declined to comment.
Attorneys for a Texas-based law firm that specializes in class-action lawsuits and which is heading up the litigation against the PIAA did not respond to numerous messages from the Tribune-Review.
Bob Lombardi, the PIAA’s executive director since 1988, said he was blindsided by the lawsuit in light of the measures the organization has implemented in recent years regarding player safety and concussions.
“This blows my mind,” Lombardi said. “All of our schools try to take care of the health of our athletes. I think we have been very responsive in asking our member schools to follow protocols.”
RULES IN PLACE
Since 2009, all 50 states passed laws regarding concussions in youth athletes. Pennsylvania in 2012 enacted its Youth in Sports Safety Act, which outlines responsibilities of schools and coaches.
“We have to have a player removed and evaluated by someone who is trained in the management, care and treatment of concussions. That’s the extent of the law,” said Larry Cooper, head athletic trainer at Penn-Trafford High School and chairman of the National Athletic Trainers’ Association Secondary School Athletic Trainers’ Committee.
Many schools go beyond that requirement, implementing preseason baseline assessments for concussions and installing more stringent concussion protocols with the help of brain injury specialists.
“The PIAA was in the forefront, not lagging behind, to try to get something in place as a student safety initiative,” Cooper said. “You have to applaud them for doing that.”
The lawsuit, which alleges negligence before and after Pennsylvania passed its law, describes in detail concussion injuries suffered by the plaintiffs and the failure of coaches and others to recognize and deal with symptoms. No schools or coaches are named in the lawsuit.
Hites suffered a severe concussion in 2011 as a freshman attending a team football camp at Slippery Rock University. It took him more than a year to be medically cleared, but he still experiences learning and social difficulties, the lawsuit states.
Zingaro suffered a concussion in June 2014 while playing in a Neshannock High softball game. Doctors cleared her to return to play two months later, although her attorneys said she continued to experience headaches and trouble with concentration.
Domenic Teolis, now a senior at Ellwood City’s Lincoln High School, suffered multiple concussions in his freshman year during football practices and games, the lawsuit states.
After suffering a concussion in practice in October 2012, Teolis played the next day against Central Valley, his lawyers said. He reported concussive symptoms to a trainer and coaches, but nothing was done until his parents took him to Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC that night, the lawsuit states.
CLAIMS AGAINST PIAA
The lawsuit claims the PIAA violated state law by not:
• requiring concussion baseline tests;
• tracking and reporting concussions;
• requiring qualified medical personnel be present at all PIAA-sanctioned practices and events;
• removing athletes with apparent concussions from practices and games;
• taking measures to educate school personnel on how to provide proper medical response to suspected concussions; and
• providing resources for student-athletes in seeking professional medical care at the time of a concussion, during treatment or for post-injury monitoring.
“None of these are required under Pennsylvania law,” said Harvey, the Temple professor. “They just aren’t.”
In addition to paying for its alleged negligence, the lawsuit wants a court to order the PIAA to establish a medical monitoring trust fund to pay for ongoing and long-term expenses of student athletes and former student athletes.
PREVIOUS CASE DISMISSED
Lawyers filed a similar suit last year against the Illinois High School Association, making it the first prep sports governing body in the country to face a class-action concussion lawsuit.
A judge in October dismissed the case, saying the IHSA had worked to improve protections for student athletes and that imposing broader liability on the governing body could reduce participation in high school football or end the sport altogether.
Harvey said the lawsuit filed in Lawrence County “cuts and pastes” whole sections of the failed litigation filed in Illinois.
Instead of frivolously suing the PIAA, the plaintiffs should address their concerns to state lawmakers in an effort to improve Pennsylvania law, the professor said.
“The allegations of what happened are not frivolous, and the solutions aren’t frivolous,” Harvey said. “But these are best addressed through the Legislature.”
Source: Cato, Jason. “Lawsuit Alleges PIAA Failed to Protect Students from Concussions.” TribLIVE.com. N.p., 11 Dec. 2015. Web. 11 Dec. 2015.
U.S. Soccer Federation Settles Youth Concussion Lawsuit
Posted: November 16, 2015 Filed under: Concussions, Lawsuit, Player Safety, Soccer | Tags: lawsuit, player safety, Safety Tag, Youth Sports Leave a comment »By PETER TORNCELLO
The United States Soccer Federation released new guidelines banning the practice of heading a soccer ball by children under the age of 10. The new guidelines also prohibit children between the ages of 11 and 13 from heading soccer balls in practice, but permit it in games.
The guidelines are part of a resolution reached in the Mehr class action concussion lawsuit that began in August of 2014. The case involved a group of parents and players who filed a class action suit in a United States District Court in California charging FIFA, the U.S. Soccer Federation and the American Youth Soccer Organization with negligence in handling head injuries of its participants. A judge ruled earlier that the claims against FIFA had no standing, but that the case against U.S. Soccer could continue.
The class action suit sought only rules changes, not financial damages.
The new U.S. Soccer guidelines were announced in a joint press release with the plaintiffs, and bring the litigation to a close.
The issue of head injuries in youth sports has taken on an increased urgency in recent years with the high-profile lawsuits brought against the National Football League (NFL) and the National Hockey League (NHL). A report by the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council of The National Academies concluded that youth sports, such as field hockey, wrestling, women’s lacrosse and soccer, provide as much, if not more, danger of concussion as football and ice hockey.
In addition, a 2012 study reported by the Head Case Co. determined that while soccer has fewer concussions per year than football, the severity of concussions is significantly higher.
As part of the settlement, the U.S. Soccer Federation also agreed to modify substitution rules in games to allow players who may have suffered a concussion to be evaluated without penalty. The guidelines also call for more education for players, parents, coaches and referees, and for more uniform practices for handling youth concussions. While the U.S. Soccer Federation guidelines will be mandatory for their youth teams and academies, they represent only recommendations for other youth soccer programs and leagues across the country.
Steve Berman, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, said, “This is a tremendous victory that will affect millions of young soccer players across the country.” He added, “We believe this decision sends a strong message to coaches and lays down paramount regulations to finally bring safety management to soccer.”
While this matter has been resolved for the U.S. Soccer Federation, the hot-button topic of head injuries in youth sports will likely continue to generate intense debate and no shortage of litigation.
Working Together to Prevent Injuries in Youth Sports
Posted: June 30, 2015 Filed under: Allergies, Asthma, Chronic Illness, Coaching, Concussions, Dehydration, Emergency Action Plan, Football, Heat Stroke, High School, Lawsuit, Little League, Player Safety, Soccer, Uncategorized, Volunteer, Youth Hockey, Youth Sports | Tags: Concussions, Education, player safety, Safety Tag, Youth Sports Leave a comment »We’ve all been there: getting hit or knocked down during a game and saying “I’m fine!” instead of taking a seat on the bench and determining whether or not we are really injured. No player wants to let the team down or feel weak for admitting that he or she is hurt and in need of a break, but this mentality can actually hurt a player even more down the line. According to safekids.org, a youth sports injury that results in a visit to the emergency room occurs once every 25 seconds. This adds up to about 3,397 children in the hospital every single day. Safe to say, youth sports injuries are not uncommon and need to be taken seriously. That number would be even higher if more players were willing to admit their pain and take the necessary steps to find out how to heal it, but this would at least prevent further damage or repeated injuries of the same kind from happening. 54 percent of athletes said they have played injured, and 42 percent of athletes have admitted to “hiding or down-playing an injury during a game so they could keep playing”, according to safekids.org. This practice of hiding injuries needs to be curbed so that children stop repeatedly playing on an injury, and putting themselves in even more danger.
At the beginning of the season, players need to be told by the coach to come forward and be honest if they are feeling less than okay and ground rules should be set to agree on how the team will approach injuries. It also becomes the parents’ responsibility to report to the coaches in the event that their child has admitted to feeling pain, or has been diagnosed by a doctor and given specific instructions about how to treat an injury. Similarly, the coach needs to be open with the parent and inform them that their child has been injured during a practice or a game so that the parent can take the necessary steps to keep their child healthy and safe. Considering that 62 percent of organized sports-related injuries occur during practices, according to youthsportssafetyalliance.org, it is clear that many injuries occur when the parent is not around to witness them, making communication necessary.
While the responsibility does lie on the player, we cannot always trust that children will take an injury as seriously as they should or that they will be open with both their coach and parent and admit to one. According to safekids.org, less than half of coaches are certified and know how to prevent and recognize sports injuries, while 53 percent have said they’ve felt “pressure from a parent or player to put an athlete back in the game” after an injury. To make the playing field a safer place, coaches need to be certified or, at the very least, aware of the health issues of their players, just as parents need to focus on their children’s health rather than their goal count.
What all of this comes down to is communication. The gaps between players and parents, players and coaches, and parents and coaches leave room for more harm. A player who tells his parents that his ankle hurt during the last practice and gets a note from the doctor that he should skip gym class should not be playing in their soccer game the next day. The player might not want to tell their coach about this for fear of being benched, but the parent should recognize the importance of resting for their child’s safety and keep the coach informed. Similarly, if a player was complaining of dizziness during practice and had to sit out, the coach should report this to the parent so that they can go to a doctor or keep an eye out for their child. If a coach or a parent doesn’t know there is something wrong with the child, then they have no way of fixing the problem. Where communication stops is where injuries can go from bad to worse. The more aware that parents and coaches are about a player’s injuries, the more help and support they can give. When players, parents, and coaches work together, athletes are kept safer and the team becomes stronger as a whole.
Illinois Senator Introducing Concussion Legislation
Posted: May 22, 2015 Filed under: Concussions, Lawsuit, Player Safety, Youth Sports | Tags: Concussions, player safety, Safety Tag, Youth Sports Leave a comment »It only takes one bad hit to get a concussion.
Dr. Gerard Gioia, a pediatrician with Chiildren’s National Healthcare System, said, “It moves that soft tissue inside the head.”
Several teens are getting concussions from contact sports, but aren’t being treated quickly enough.
Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, is working to make sure schools take these injuries more seriously.
Senator Durbin said, “If you’re taken off the field to play because you’re suspected of having a concussion. Sit them down.
They’re not going return for this game.”
According to a new study, not taking a teen out of a game could be harmful. The study followed kids who sustained one head injury versus kids with two injuries within a 24 hour time frame. The kids with two injuries had a much longer period of recovery.
The NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB and NCAA all back Durbin’s bill, which, according to Durbin, shows times have changed since he was a kid.
He said, “I was playing football with some of the junkiest equipment in the world not thinking twice.”
But he does acknowledge that even with such advancements, there is still a risk.
Senator Durbin said, “I’d think twice about a son or grandson who wanted to play football.”
Under his legislation, students with a suspected concussion would be required to sit out for the day, parents would have to be notified and the student would need a doctor’s note before returning to play.
Schools would have five years to implement this policy. If they don’t, they would lose federal funding.
Durbin said this is an incentive to make sure schools continue to do the right thing.
Source: “Illinois Senator Introducing Concussion Legislation.” WOWT RSS. N.p., 22 May 2015. Web. 22 May 2015.
Concussion law needs some delicate footwork
Posted: May 1, 2015 Filed under: Concussions, Lawsuit, Player Safety, Youth Sports | Tags: Concussions, player safety, Safety Tag, Youth Sports Leave a comment »By KEN DIXON
HARTFORD — The Capitol is the place where good ideas can mate with well-meaning attempts to make life better. But their bastard offspring can be unintended consequences.
Bad law often means more business for Connecticut trial lawyers, which is lucrative for the suits, but it can underscore the lack of legislative foresight.
Take the pending law on concussions that would require youth coaches to give out information on the sports-related affliction that’s getting a deserved amount of national awareness these days, now that a cavalcade of former National Football League players are checking in with early-onset dementia and the cash-flush league has finally agreed to create a billion-dollar care fund for their once-proud warriors.
Connecticut lawmakers of goodwill, including Sen. Dante Bartolomeo of Meriden and Rep.Diana Urban of North Stonington, co-chairman of the Committee on Committee, want to push this, in the next step to help alert young kids, 7 to 19, to the dangers of bashing their heads in local pay-to-play rec leagues.
It’s a logical extension of efforts made in recent years to make sure high school and college kids recover before returning to play after they’ve had their brains rattled.
The bill passed unanimously in the Appropriations Committee last week, after Casey Cochranof Monroe, the former starting quarterback at UConn, participated in a news conference supporting the bill. Cochran, a star at Masuk High School, last year decided to quit playing when the number of concussions he had endured, finally matched his uniform No. 12.
“I probably blacked out for a little bit on the field,” Cochran said of one of the more-memorable hits he took, of which he has little recollection today. “I hit the ground and then immediately I was pretty confused. I got up and my vision was blurry. I had trouble talking with one of my other players coming off the field. And then, immediately after, trouble sleeping. For me, the shortest-lasting thing was those headaches for about a month. Afterwards it’s everything from anxiety to depression that affected me over my years and they last for a long time. Every concussion I had was a little bit different and every one I think the symptoms lasted a little bit longer. It needs to be out there that football brings concussions. It’s part of the game. It’s a game that I love and it’s a game that I want to be around for the rest of my life. But people just need to understand that it’s just part of the game.”
And yeah, playing hurt is part of the game.
“I have gone out on the field after a concussion,” he said. “And it’s tough because I’ve had great coaches in the youth ranks, high school and college; people who don’t want you to play when you’re hurt, who don’t ever praise that. But it comes down to the players. It’s their decision. You can hide a concussion from a coach. You can’t hide a broken leg, usually, but concussions are something you can hide. And I think a lot of players do hide that.”
Cochran, 21, is an intern for NBC Connecticut, helps his father coach quarterbacks on the weekend and will start his master’s degree in sports management at UConn. He’ll soon collect a communications degree. He called the pending legislation a “common-sense” bill.
“We are not stopping anyone from playing athletics,” Bartolomeo said in the news conference. “We are not requiring anyone to be a medical professional. All we’re saying is the information is out there. Make sure that parents and athletes and coaches are aware of it. Protect our children. That’s all we’re asking.”
What makes the bill more complicated, however, is the world of liability law. What if a volunteer rec league official, stuffing envelopes full of registration materials, fails to include the concussion-alert literature from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention? What if a 15-year-old referee lets a couple kids who just banged heads together, stand up from the grass and resume their soccer game?
I called Rep. John Shaban, R-Redding, a former semi-pro guard who is a lawyer and president of the Aspetuck Wild Cats, an American Youth Football affiliate for third-to-eighth graders.
The mantra for coaches and kids is “awareness, recognition and recovery,” he said. He said the Wild Cats promote pre-season screening and in-season vigilance.
“I’ve had concussions and maybe played through things I shouldn’t have,” Shaban recalled. But times change and the Wild Cats have stressed concussion awareness for a long time. “When you’re comparing youth leagues to pro football, it’s like putting a swing set next to a jet fighter. Soccer and cheerleading have more concussions, but biking, by far, results in more. Statistically, football is drastically safer than riding a bike, by an order of magnitude.”
And kids heal if they take the necessary time to recover.
As a lawyer, Shaban looks at the sad hypothetical of a kid getting hurt. “I don’t want to create a liability issue for good-faith coaches and youth programs and that can happen if you create a quasi-standard of care,” he said. “Fewer lawsuits are good for everybody.”
Less work for the trial lawyers is good, too.
Source: Dixon, Ken. “Concussion Law Needs Some Delicate Footwork.” Connecticut Post. N.p., 01 May 2015. Web. 01 May 2015.
Senate passes student concussion bill without opposition
Posted: April 30, 2015 Filed under: Concussions, Lawsuit, Player Safety, Youth Sports | Tags: Concussions, player safety, Safety Tag, Youth Sports Leave a comment »By SETH RICHARDSON
A bill setting guidelines for how and when students can return to both the athletics and academics after suffering a concussion passed the Senate on Thursday.
Sen. Kwame Raoul, D-Chicago, is the sponsor of Senate Bill 7, which would put in place post-concussion protocols. It would create a concussion oversight team based on a school district’s resources, outline who can clear a student to return, and require districts to have plans in place at different athletic venues.
The bill passed by a 41-0 vote.
Raoul said he was happy this version of the bill passed because it goes beyond athletics when dealing with head injuries.
“For years, with concussions, we focused on return to play without focusing on return to learn when they’re equally as important,” he said.
Sen. Dan Kotowski, D-Park Ridge, originally sponsored the legislation, but Raoul took over as chief sponsor after both of his children suffered concussions earlier this year.
Head injuries have been in the spotlight lately with several high profile deaths of professional athletes, including the suicide of former Chicago Bear Dave Duerson. Duerson’s son Tregg helped lobby in support of the bill while it moved through committee on Tuesday.
Concussions can have both immediate and lingering effects, including an increased risk for dementia and epilepsy later in life. Kotowski said the bill passing was a huge step forward in protecting students from these effects.
“We want to make sure kids are safe when they participate in athletic activity and in the classroom, and the two aren’t mutually exclusive,” he said.
The Illinois High School Association supports the measure. Raoul said he thinks he’s alleviated any opponents the bill previously had.
The bill now moves to the House. Raoul and Kotowski said they expect it to pass easily.
Source: Richardson, Seth. “Senate Passes Student Concussion Bill without Opposition.” The State Journal. N.p., 30 Apr. 2015. Web. 30 Apr. 2015.
Sen. Dick Durbin Reintroduces Federal Youth-Concussion Legislation
Posted: April 17, 2015 Filed under: Concussions, Lawsuit, Player Safety, Youth Sports | Tags: Concussions, player safety, Safety Tag, Youth Sports Leave a comment »By BRYAN TOPOREK
On Thursday, Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) introduced legislation that would establish a national standard for youth-concussion treatment and prevention.
Each state has already passed some form of a youth-concussion law, but some are far more expansive than others. According to a 2014 analysis from the Education Commission of the States, just half of states require coaches to complete a concussion-management training program (some annually, some biennially), while only 13 states’ laws extend coverage beyond public school sports to private schools or youth athletic leagues. While multiple stateshave begun the process of amending those laws to further strengthen them, not all have followed suit.
Under Durbin’s proposed legislation, all public elementary and secondary schools would be required to post concussion information on school grounds, including the signs and symptoms of a concussion, the risks of sustaining a concussion, and how students should react if they do sustain a concussion. The law would require school personnel to immediately remove from play any student-athlete suspected of having sustained a concussion, and those student-athletes would not be allowed to return until receiving written clearance from a licensed health care professional.
The bill doesn’t stop there, however. Even if a student sustains a concussion outside of school, he or she must received written clearance from a health care provider before returning to participation in school-sponsored athletics. Additionally, each local education agency would be required to “develop and implement a standard plan for concussion safety and education” that includes release forms sent to parents and student-athletes and concussion training for school personnel. The bill encourages districts to establish a multi-disciplinary concussion-management team to help students return to both athletic and academic activities.
“My bill sets, for the first time, minimum state requirements for the prevention and treatment of concussions,” Durbin said in a statement. “These common sense safety requirements will help effectively address head injuries in our youth. We must ensure students, parents, and coaches have the information they need to effectively evaluate these types of injuries.”
Here’s the kicker: If states aren’t in compliance with the bill within five years of its passage, their federal funding would be in jeopardy. During a state’s first year of non-compliance, the bill authorizes the U.S. Secretary of Education to “reduce by 5 percent the amount of funds the state receives under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965″ for the first fiscal year following the deadline. If said state continues to remain out of compliance following that first year, the education secretary would be authorized to reduce ESEA funding by 10 percent for the next fiscal year.
This isn’t the first time a congressman has attempted to enact federal youth-concussion legislation. Similar versions of the bill were introduced in both 2010 and 2011, but neither made it out of the House Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education, however. Durbin introduced an earlier version back in 2013, but it likewise failedto advance past the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee. GovTrack.us gives this latest version of the bill just a 1 percent chance of moving past the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee, where it has been referred.
Source: Toporek, Bryan. “Sen. Dick Durbin Reintroduces Federal Youth-Concussion Legislation.” Education Week. N.p., 17 Apr. 2015. Web. 17 Apr. 2015.
Youth sports bill needs to be put on the shelf
Posted: April 5, 2015 Filed under: Lawsuit, Player Safety, Youth Sports | Tags: lawsuit, player safety, Safety Tag, Youth Sports Leave a comment »It can be overwhelming to consider the breadth and depth of the issues facing the Florida Legislature.
Health care. The environment. Crime and justice. The behavior of youth league sports coaches.
Wait … what?
In a sign that the Legislature has run out of useful things to legislate, Sen. Jeremy Ring, D-Margate, has introduced a bill mandating that youth coaches who are ejected for unruly behavior must be suspended for the rest of the season.
Sen. Ring says that the bill was inspired by his experiences with his 8-year-old’s youth soccer team.
Note to all legislators: Your isolated, anecdotal experiences are probably not a valid basis for statewide legislative prescriptions.
But this monument to government overreach deserves a red card for other reasons.
First, these are private sports leagues that already have governing bodies to handle such things as rules on discipline and behavior. Virtually every soccer league has strict codes of conduct that include specific language on what happens when coaches (or players) exhibit poor sportsmanship, or worse.
Further, this is a classic government “one size fits all” solution to problems that can be very nuanced. What if a referee or umpire has a quick trigger finger and wrongly throws out a coach? Sen. Ring’s bill has some sort of a mandated appeals process (see prior sentence on overreaching) but soccer leagues should be free to determine the best course of action.
And how about the law of unintended consequences? Youth sports league referees and umpires will surely be less likely to toss a coach from the game, knowing that the ramifications are so severe. Is this a good thing?
Finally, Sen. Ring’s comparison of unruly coaches to teachers is way off the mark. Teachers are public employees, under the purview of the government. Youth sports coaches are part of private leagues. Parents are presumably in attendance at most games and can judge for themselves whether or not a coach presents a danger to their child.
Yes, there are outrageous displays of poor sportsmanship by a tiny minority of youth sports coaches, in this state and across the country.
But those problems need to be addressed by private youth soccer leagues, not an overreaching government program.
We urge state legislators to send this bill straight to the showers.
Source: “Youth Sports Bill Needs to Be Put on the Shelf.” The News-Press. N.p., 05 Apr. 2015. Web. 05 Apr. 2015.
Bill Protecting Youth Sports Against Concussion Lawsuits Advances
Posted: March 2, 2015 Filed under: Concussions, Lawsuit, Player Safety, Youth Sports | Tags: Concussions, lawsuit, player safety, Safety Tag, Youth Sports Leave a comment »By ERIC PETERSON
A bill sponsored by Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clearfield, cleared a committee Monday morning. It would help shield amateur sports organizations from lawsuits relating to injuries like concussions experienced by youth sports teams, so long as organizations adopt clear policies regarding injury risks.
Ray’s House Bill 383 is an extension of a bill he passed in the 2014 session encouraging youth sports organizations to adopt policies to help prevent serious injuries to youth athletes. Ray, who coaches youth football, says that, given the newest information about the seriousness of concussions, the legislation was intended to help educate parents and teachers about the very real risk of concussions and traumatic brain injuries that could result from sports injuries.
The bill last year promoted minimum requirements for these policies, such as an educational component. In Ray’s case, for example, he hands out paperwork explaining concussion risks that his football players have to read and have their parents read and sign in order for their children to participate. Another requirement is educating coaches about recognizing symptoms of concussions among players, and pulling them from participating if they have those symptoms until a physician can evaluate and clear them to resume playing.
Ray said that bill was in many ways something he felt necessary because unfortunately many parents didn’t recognize the risks, and wanted their injured child to continue playing. “As a coach, the only pressure I got to put a player back in was from mom and dad,” Ray said. “The parents were really the reason I drafted a concussion policy.”
Ray’s previous legislation didn’t mandate organizations adopt such policies, so now he says his current legislation is intended to provide an incentive for organizations to adopt such a policy by rewarding those that have them with general liability protection against individuals seeking to sue organizations because of injuries players received.
Ray stressed, however, that the bill was not providing absolute protection, and organizations could still be liable for negligence—for example, if a coach put a player in that he knew was injured.
Mark Van Wagoner, with the Utah High School Sports Association that organizes most youth sports in the state, says the bill is a good incentive to help protect organizations like his against lawsuits and encourage policies that protect athletes.
The UHSSA, he explained, is “a nonprofit association that organizes the interplay for the high schools. In that sense, we don’t control what happens in each game; that’s done in individual high schools. But some might want to sue the association because it’s a target,” Van Wagoner said.
The bill was passed favorably out of the House Economic Development and Workforce Services Committee by a unanimous vote, and now heads to the house floor for full debate.
Source: Peterson, Eric. “Bill Protecting Youth Sports Against Concussion Lawsuits Advances.” Salt Lake City Weekly. N.p., 02 Mar. 2015. Web. 02 Mar. 2015.
Concussion doctor Robert Cantu: NCAA, NFL settlements fall short
Posted: February 27, 2015 Filed under: Concussions, Football, Lawsuit, Player Safety | Tags: Concussions, lawsuit, player safety, Safety Tag Leave a comment »By JON SOLOMON
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — The NCAA’s proposed concussion settlement has its positives, but it doesn’t go far enough because it fails to pay former college athletes if they are diagnosed with a brain injury. That according to prominent concussion expert Dr. Robert Cantu, who also opposes the soon-to-be-approved NFL deal.
If a federal judge eventually approves the NCAA settlement, Cantu will be one of five people on a committee that oversees a $70 million medical monitoring fund. The fund would cover diagnostic medical costs if a former athlete qualifies for testing based on a questionnaire, not the actual treatment.
“I think it’s very unfortunate,” Cantu said. “Unfortunately, where it’s left is these individuals are going to be able to be given the diagnosis and then they’ve got to sue either in a class or individually, and they either have to go after a given school, or if they want to include the NCAA they can. I think a lot of individual schools will get sued.”
A federal judge denied preliminary approval of the NCAA settlement in December and a status hearing is scheduled for April 17. The NFL went through a similar process and final approval of its settlement appears imminent.
Cantu, who served as an expert for the college players in the case, said he believes the NCAA ran into insurance issues that the NFL didn’t encounter in its $785 million settlement with former professional players.
“The (NFL) owners came up with $785 million bucks and they didn’t even go to an insurance company. We’re dealing with billionaires,” Cantu said. “The NCAA has to deal with insurance companies and probably that kind of money — although they came up with $70 million, which is pretty good — isn’t there for compensation.”
The NFL settlement compensates former players depending on their diagnosis but protects the league in exposure over chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease linked to repeated trauma to the head that has been found in 76 of the 79 brains of former NFL players examined after their death.
“The CTE exposure, nobody knows how big it is, but if 76 out of 79 symptomatic people had it, it’s probably big,” Cantu said. “But damn it, you can only be compensated (in the NFL settlement) if you were diagnosed with CTE or died by the time the settlement was approved by the judge. So all of these people going forward in the next 50 years, a great majority of which have CTE, are going to be absolutely screwed. Those (plaintiffs’) lawyers who just want to get paid, and that’s why they probably agreed to it, I just think that’s awful.”
Medical experts and economists that created the NCAA medical monitoring fund estimated 50 to 300 former college athletes who played from 1956 to 2008 will be diagnosed with CTE each year. The fund for testing is supposed to last for 50 years.
Cantu said the NCAA settlement is “good for what it is” by demanding colleges apply best practices for diagnosing and treating concussions as well as letting former players take a survey to see if they have post-concussion syndrome or CTE symptoms. The NCAA’s changes are positive after “turning a blind eye for so long,” Cantu said, but the policies must be enforced.
Last month, the five major conferences created a committee to annually review each school’s concussion protocol. However, enough NCAA members have so far been hesitant about creating rules and penalties on caring for concussions.
“What the NCAA has to do — and it’s easy for me to say and not easy to do — they have to police so the policies get done,” Cantu said. “They’re leaving it self-policed until there’s a whistle blown. And I realize it takes money to do that, but you’re dealing with a pretty serious issue. The NCAA came into being in 1906 to promote the health and well-being of the combatants. It wasn’t about policing all this lunch money (extra benefits) and other nonsense.
“At the (Division I) level, there’s no question there’s the money to police it. It can be argued there’s not the money at the (Division III) level. But I guess it can be argued if you can’t do something right, you shouldn’t do it at all if people can die as a result of mistakes.”
Cantu, a pioneer in the fight against sports-related brain damage, has drawn criticism for working on both sides of the concussion debate through the years.
He is senior advisor to the NFL Head, Neck and Spine Committee and has worked against the NFL. He has helped set helmet safety standards for the NCAA and got paid tens of thousands of dollars to testify for ex-players against the NCAA.
“I give the best information I have to organizations that seek out my opinion, and if they don’t want me to be affiliated with them, fine. If they do, fine,” Cantu said. “I’m not influenced by what the organization is. What I say is consistent and it’s based on the science that I know.”
Source: Solomon, Jon. “Concussion Doctor Robert Cantu: NCAA, NFL Settlements Fall Short.” CBSSports.com. N.p., 27 Feb. 2015. Web. 27 Feb. 2015.
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