New York, NY: The National Hockey League (NHL) is facing a landmark personal injury class action lawsuit filed by 10 former players targeting three areas of the professional game, namely, fighting, body checking and the use of enforcers.
This lawsuit follows on the heels of the recent National Football League (NFL) class action which alleged that the NFL concealed from its players the risk for permanent, debilitating, even fatal illness caused by chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, which results from concussion injury.
Filed this week, the NHL class action includes former Toronto Maple Leafs captain Rick Vaive, among the 10 plaintiffs. The lawsuit outlines what it claims is a pattern of the NHL "causing or contributing to the injuries and increased risks"to its players. It further alleges that current rules allowing fighting and body checking are part of that pattern.
The lawsuit states: "The game of hockey as played in the NHL, including both practices and game play, has exposed former players to hazardous conditions and out-of-the ordinary risks of harm. These repetitive head accelerations to which the Plaintiffs have been exposed present risks of latent but long-term debilitating chronic illnesses not presented to the normal population. Absent defendants' negligence, fraud, and/or misrepresentations, Plaintiffs' exposure to the risks of harm as described above (including but not limited to) the release of biological substances into their respective brains would have been materially lower."
The lawsuit continues, "Accordingly, the repetitive head impacts sustained by NHL players in games and practices exposed them, including the Plaintiffs, to subtle and repetitive changes within the brain on the cellular level. For that reason, the environment within which NHL players have sustained repetitive head impacts exposed them to substantive hazards."
And, "Depending on many factors, including the amount of the exposure to repetitive head impacts and the release of Tau protein, the player/victim will develop a range of subtle to significant neuro-cognitive changes over time. The latent injuries which develop over time and manifest later in life include but are not limited to varying forms of neuro-cognitive disability, decline, personality change, mood swings, rage, and, sometimes, fully-developed encephalopathy."
The lawsuit continues, "The NHL persists in this conduct to date by, among other things, refusing to ban fighting and body checking and by continuing to employ hockey players whose main function is to fight or violently body check players on the other team ("Enforcers")."
The lawsuit cites a 2013 University of Toronto study that found 64.2 percent of concussions in the years covered were suffered on plays that were not penalized.
"The time has come for the NHL to elevate long-term player safety over profit and tradition,"the lawsuit states.
