Personal Injury Law

Concussions and the NFL: Legal Liability for Rushing a Player Back to Play Too Soon?

It is indisputable that cerebral concussions are commonly sustained by football players, professional or amateur.  As time has gone by, concussions have gone from being considered relatively minor injuries to becoming a cause of deep concern for long-term cognitive problems that often result therefrom. An interesting article in The New York Times last week by Alan Schwartz about the recent concussion sustained by Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and the expertise of concussion management at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center pointed out some apparently significant differences between how concussions are dealt with in the National Football League as compared to elsewhere, particularly in the willingness to allow players suspected of having sustained a concussion to return to the game in which they were injured. Whether this will eventually result in the imposition of civil liability in a future lawsuit brought by a player is an interesting question.

Full post as published by Legal Blog on January 05, 2009 (boomark / email).