{"id":295,"date":"2012-02-28T07:06:43","date_gmt":"2012-02-28T13:06:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nflconcussionlitigation.com\/?p=295"},"modified":"2012-02-28T10:45:42","modified_gmt":"2012-02-28T16:45:42","slug":"nfl-concussion-lawsuit-tracker-35","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nflconcussionlitigation.com\/?p=295","title":{"rendered":"NFL Concussion Lawsuit Tracker: 35"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Locks Law Firm continues to make it rain. On Friday they filed the 35<sup>th<\/sup> concussion-related lawsuit against the NFL. The lawsuit, filed in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, is a mass tort and includes 52 former players and their wives:\u00a0<em><a href=\"http:\/\/nflconcussionlitigation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/Hairston-v.-NFL.pdf\">Carl Hairston, et al v. NFL<\/a>.<\/em> This is the seventh lawsuit filed by the Locks Law Firm, and they now represent 234 former players. The <em>Hairston<\/em> suit is no different than the others, asserting counts of negligence, negligent misrepresentation, fraud, fraudulent concealment, conspiracy to defraud, loss of consortium and declaratory relief.<\/p>\n<p>With the creation of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.playerinjury.com\/\">playerinjury.com<\/a>, former players have rushed to the Locks Law Firm to seek representation. I don\u2019t think we are anywhere close to seeing the end. Each week, for the past 10 weeks, a new concussion suit has been filed. With the recent national-media frenzy over Dave Duerson\u2019s wrongful death suit, I am sure former players are starting to catch wind that these lawsuits may have a chance.<\/p>\n<p>There are now over 700 former players&#8211;roughly 715&#8211;represented in the lawsuits. Whether or not the increased number of plaintiffs will drive the NFL to consider settling is highly doubtful. Any talks of settlement would not come until after, and IF, the plaintiffs are able to survive a motion to dismiss and summary judgment. In other words, the NFL is not going to roll over anytime soon and acquiesce to the former players\u2019 demands. In all likelihood, if these cases survived summary judgment, they would still have to win over a jury. In fact, a common occurrence in complex litigation entails a few cases being tried, called \u201cbellweather cases,\u201d to forecast their possible success. If the case is successful in front of a jury, then the defendants are often willing to settle as opposed to risking numerous future trials.<\/p>\n<p>However, we are far from the stage of settlement talks, in my opinion. The plaintiffs\u2019 first challenge will be to overcome the NFL\u2019s argument that the cases don\u2019t belong in court (i.e. the lawsuits are barred by the CBA pursuant to Section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Action). \u00a0In the next few weeks, the multidistrict litigation (MDL) proceedings should start to pickup, with the NFL filing its motion to dismiss as to all of the lawsuits.<\/p>\n<p>In the interim, the lawsuits will continue to pile on, and they will slowly become \u201ctag-along actions,\u201d joining the MDL in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n<p>As a humorous-side note, one of the plaintiffs is named \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/bleacherreport.com\/articles\/204307-when-a-name-is-not-just-words\">Fair Hooker<\/a>\u201d and another \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/S\/ShyxLe00.htm\">Les Shy<\/a>.\u201d Both were fairly accomplished players in the 1960s and \u201870s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Locks Law Firm continues to make it rain. On Friday they filed the 35th concussion-related lawsuit against the NFL. The lawsuit, filed in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, is a mass tort and includes 52 former players and their wives:\u00a0Carl Hairston, et al v. NFL. This is the seventh lawsuit filed by the Locks [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nflconcussionlitigation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nflconcussionlitigation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nflconcussionlitigation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nflconcussionlitigation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nflconcussionlitigation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=295"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/nflconcussionlitigation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":301,"href":"http:\/\/nflconcussionlitigation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295\/revisions\/301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nflconcussionlitigation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nflconcussionlitigation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nflconcussionlitigation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}