Derek Boogaard, Dead at the Age of 28
Update (August 28, 2014): The Rohloff complaint, discussed below, bears a resemblance to the LaCouture complaint from several months earlier filed by different law firms on behalf of different former NHL players. They are an interesting study in different styles. (Lots of pictures in the LaCouture complaint, for example.)
The point both lawsuits make is the same: the National Hockey League has made many hundreds of millions of dollars, feeding fans with the brutality of battered skulls of young and gifted athletes for about 100 years. Maybe it is time to stop. And/or maybe it is time to redistribute some of the blood money the league has raked in over the years.
These two cases, along with others, I assume, have been “MDL’d” in Minnesota and will be before U.S. District Court Judge Susan R. Nelson (D. Minn.). (This is a process in which several (sometimes thousands) of lawsuits are consolidated in a single court for pretrial proceedings rather than forcing parties and lawyers to fight very similar fights in a disorderly array of courthouses across the country.)
(If the NHL has problems, what about boxing organizers etc etc etc?)
Original post (July 29, 2014) (under the subject line: Rohloff v. NHL: Taking on the NHL for Players’ Brain Damage): Two years ago, Minnesota Litigator noted the work of sports law specialist, William A. Staar, about a new wave of litigation over head injuries.
It’s a class action. It is in U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota where the case has been assigned to Judge Donovan W. Frank.