The CFL, concussions, and a $200 million court case.

Posted By: Jon Heshka

It was only a matter of time before the Canadian Football League (CFL) would be named in a concussion class action lawsuit. On the heels of the first CFL concussion lawsuit filed last year in The Supreme Court of British Columbia, a class action suit being filed last year against the National Hockey League over Canada's national winter sport, and no doubt emboldened by the $1 billion NFL settlement, two former players have filed a claim against the CFL for $200 million.

On May 29, 2015 Korey Banks and Eric Allen filed a statement of claim on behalf of all retired CFL football players since 1952 with the Ontario Superior Court. Banks is a former Mississippi State standout and played in the CFL from 2004 to 2014. He won the league championship Grey Cup twice and was named CFL All-Star four times.

Allen was a star running back at Michigan State and played for the Toronto Argonauts from 1972 to 1975. The lawsuit names Mark Cohon, the commissioner of the Canadian Football League, the CFL, all nine teams in the CFL, an internationally renowned doctor who specializes in sports concussions, and a medical centre which employs the doctor. The claim states that the defendants caused or contributed Banks and Allen to suffer brain injuries due to multiple sub-concussive and concussive blows and that the brain injuries have and will continue to cause suffering. The lawsuit alleges negligence and negligent misrepresentation. Tearing a page from the NFL class action lawsuit, Banks and Allen claim that the CFL profits from the glorification of the brutality and ferocity of the game and has taken insufficient steps to make football safer.

Banks and Allen claim that:

1. the CFL denied a scientifically proven link between repetitive traumatic head impacts and later-in-life cognitive brain injury including Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE);

2. that the CFL misled, downplayed, and obfuscated the true and serious risks of these hits;

3. that the CFL failed to warn them of the long-term medical risks associated with repetitive head impacts; and

4. they relied upon these statements in playing professional football.

   They similarly allege that Dr. Charles Tator, whom the CFL partnered with as part of its Canadian Sports Concussion Project at the Krembil Neuroscience Centre, is negligent for an article entitled "Absence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in retired football players with multiple concussions and neurological symptomatology"...