About the Lawsuit
This class action lawsuit was filed on February 9, 2023, and is assigned case number 1:23-cv-00358-JRR, pending before the Honorable Judge Julie Rebecca Rubin in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. An amended complaint further bolstering the plaintiffs’ claims was filed on May 12, 2023.
Ten retired players are proposed class representatives for the proposed class (and four proposed subclasses) of former players in this litigation: Jason Alford, Daniel Loper, Willis McGahee, Michael McKenzie, Jamize Olawale, Alex Parsons, Eric Smith, Charles Sims, Joey Thomas, and Lance Zeno.
The named defendants in the lawsuit are the NFL Player Disability & Survivor Benefit Plan and NFL Player Disability & Neurocognitive Benefits Plan (the Plan), the Disability Board that administers the Plan, and each of the Board’s members, including NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.
Allegations
The lawsuit claims that the defendants have repeatedly, willfully, and systematically breached their fiduciary duty of loyalty through lies, material misinformation, affirmative misrepresentations, and otherwise failing to act exclusively in the interest of disabled retired players and their beneficiaries. In addition, the lawsuit separately claims that the defendants wrongfully denied players disability benefits by acting inconsistently with terms of the Plan.
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The complaint alleges that the doctors tasked with the evaluation of former players to determine benefit eligibility are misleadingly touted as “absolutely neutral.” Numerous doctors have been paid between $1.1 million and $1.8 million in direct and indirect compensation by the board, and new data strongly suggests that the more the Board pays a doctor for their work, the more likely they are to shade favorable conclusions and findings and fabricate unfavorable findings. The former players allege that these doctors are thus not absolutely neutral. By misrepresenting those facts in communications about the Plan, the defendants have created a sham process through misinformation.
Moreover, the complaint alleges that the Board has, by its own members’ admission in testimony, failed to review all relevant material for claims as required by the Plan’s terms despite misleading applicants to believe otherwise in decision letters. Instead, they engaged in a pattern of rubber-stamping erroneous conclusions of doctors financially incentivized to deny claims. In the aggregate, the former players claim that the defendants have repeatedly breached their fiduciary duty and acted as their adversary rather than as a fiduciary, among other additional allegations of breach of fiduciary duties.
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In addition, the complaint separately alleges that defendants have wrongfully denied benefits to former players by, among other acts, routinely failing to consider the cumulative effect of all impairments, unreasonably interpreting the Plan's explicit requirements for Active Football T & P eligibility, considering factors expressly barred by the Plan's plain terms, such as education and prior training, and failing to review all information in the administrative record.
What We’re Seeking
We are seeking to recover plaintiffs’ due benefits and enforce and clarify their rights under the terms of the Plan.
We are also seeking to obtain other appropriate equitable relief including removal of the Board’s members, injunctions prohibiting the use of biased doctors, surcharge, and injunctions to correct and prevent further misinformation, among other remedies for the breaches of fiduciary duty of loyalty.
Where We Stand
On March 20, 2024, Judge Julie Rebecca Rubin of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland denied the NFL’s attempt to dismiss our case – a huge win for retired NFL players who have been subjected to the NFL Disability Plan’s systemic injustice for far too long. This ruling allows most of our claims on behalf of retired players to move forward.
On September 3, 2024, we filed for class certification, which will allow the case to proceed to trial as a class action. We look forward to continuing our investigation into the NFL Disability Plans’ wrongdoing and uncovering further potential evidence of this billion-dollar organization’s wrongful denial of benefits and breaches of fiduciary duty to disabled former players.
As we move into 2025, we will continue with the discovery process. The discovery phase is currently set to close in early May, with a trial scheduled for June.