NFL Concussion Settlement Appellants Fighting against Expedited Court Process
Players with serious cognitive impairments my have to wait a lot longer to receive a monetary award under the NFL Concussion Settlement.
Willard/Willard
As you know, the NFL Concussion Settlement was approved by Judge Brody, but no monetary awards and others benefits will begin flowing until all appeals have been exhausted.
Some former players have claimed that there will probably be an “expedited” hearing process and therefore we shouldn’t make such a big deal about the supposed short delay in getting money to the guys that need it most.
I wish that were true.
Our lawyers filed for an expedited appeals process, but almost all of the appellants are now fighting against that – and have filed court documents specifically arguing for more time. Check out the links to those documents here and here.
I did a little research on the length of an appeal process and found that the “median” amount of time it takes to dispose of a Federal case is 10.3 months . Here is a link to the data compiled by the Court: Avg. length of disposition. Some are shorter and some are longer – a lot longer. For example, look at the appeals process in the Dryer v. NFL Settlement that was approved on November 1, 2013. We are now going on the 20th month of that appeals process and it could take over two years before anything is resolved. For the record, I am in favor of that appeal because there are no direct awards to any former players in that Settlement agreement.
The NFL Concussions Settlement is different story. We know for a fact that that over the course of this Settlement, there will be thousands of players that will receive monetary awards and get medical treatments and free prescriptions to help them with their symptoms. That just doesn’t seem to matter to some former players. I just hope and pray that our lead plaintiff Kevin Turner and other seriously injured former players will be here with us to see the day when this Settlement finally goes into effect.
A lot of the guys that are appealing this Settlement will say that they don’t want to do this - they just want to make sure that their injuries – like depression, headaches, sleepless, behavioral and personality changes are covered in the Settlement. Don’t we all! Unfortunately, the science and research didn’t help our cause and we couldn’t prove that those symptoms were directly caused by our time in the NFL.
If the guys that have appealed the Settlement really wanted to help out the men that have early and moderate dementia, ALS, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease (and the players that will receive free treatments and free prescriptions to help them combat symptoms) they should have joined the 200 guys that opted out of the Settlement and continued their litigation against the NFL.
The guys that have appealed, on the other hand, have nothing to lose. Even if their appeals fail, they are still covered by the Settlement! And get this: many of the former players that are appealing the Settlement never even filed a lawsuit against the NFL in the first place. Remember, only 5,000 former players filed lawsuits out of the 20,000 that played in the NFL.
Steven Molo, one of the lawyers that has appealed the Settlement on behalf of Alan Faneca, Roderick Cartwright, Jeff Rohrer and Sean Considine, is probably the most prominent lawyer in this case. At the November 2014 Fairness Hearing, he objected to several of the Settlement provisions and to his credit, the Judge listened and asked the parties if they would consider making a few changes. They did.
That wasn’t good enough for Molo and his 4 clients that are appealing. They want more.
Meanwhile, as the conditions of guys like Kevin Turner and Steve Smith continue to worsen, Alan Faneca, Roderick Cartwright, Jeff Rohrer and Sean Considine all seem to be doing fairly well.
I know that some will look at this article as an attack on all the guys that appealed the Settlement, but these guys put themselves out there by filing an appeal that will hold this Settlement up - for who knows how long.
Alan Faneca, the most high profile player in this appeal, didn’t even bother to file a lawsuit against the NFL back when we were all trying to encourage players to join and build momentum with strength in numbers!
If you look at Alan Faneca’s Facebook Page you will see him enjoying family picnics and other activities and that he finished the 2014 New Orleans Rock and Roll Marathon in 3:56. He’s going to run it again this year.
I’m not saying he doesn’t have health issues. He has suffered from Epilepsy since the age of 15 and I’m sure he has some of those “lesser” symptoms that his lawyer Molo has convinced him he should get compensated for in the Settlement. He has every right to disagree with the settlement, and he exercised that right when he brought his objections before Judge Brody at the fairness hearing.
But now that the Court has spoken, he and the others who have appealed have to make a choice: do they stand down and allow their alumni brothers to finally get the help they need, or do they press forward with their appeals, using legal arguments that have already been rejected by a federal Judge, while the seriously injured keep suffering with no end in sight?
Alan was a great player and he had a great career and he deserved the multi-million dollar contracts he received during his playing days.
Now it’s time for the guys that are seriously injured to get the money they need!
