NFL Concussion Litigation
Background
I served as counsel (with co-counsel) for former professional football players bringing Missouri workplace-safety claims arising from repetitive head trauma, including claims for negligence-based theories and related damages.
In Green v. Arizona Cardinals Football Club, the plaintiffs included three former players (and two spouses asserting derivative claims) against the players’ former team.
The suit alleged multiple concussive and sub-concussive blows during the relevant period and focused on alleged failures to warn and protect players from long-term neurological risks.
The team removed the case to federal court and argued that § 301 of the LMRA completely preempted the state-law claims, and it also sought to pause the case pending potential transfer into the NFL concussion MDL.
Strategy & Briefing
My approach centered on keeping Missouri-law workplace claims in the proper forum by demonstrating that the duties at issue were grounded in independent Missouri employer-employee obligations—not in collectively bargained provisions. In the remand briefing, we emphasized that the petition invoked Missouri’s workers’ compensation/occupational-disease framework and the federal non-removal statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1445(c).
We also addressed the argument that the claims alleged breaches of non-delegable workplace-safety duties imposed on Missouri employers notwithstanding the existence of a CBA.
Related briefing in the MDL context likewise framed Missouri’s scheme as unusual in that it can provide occupational-disease claimants substantive rights to sue an employer in civil court for unsafe-workplace conduct—an issue that materially affects forum and preemption analysis.
Result
In Green, Judge Catherine D. Perry remanded the case to Missouri state court, holding that the duties alleged arose independently of the CBAs and that the merits could be evaluated without interpreting any CBA terms—defeating complete-preemption jurisdiction.
Following the remand victories and related litigation in Philadelphia, including an appeal to the 3rd Circuit, the matters resolved through confidential settlements for my clients, without requiring them to participate in the broader NFL concussion class settlement proceedings.