SALT LAKE CITY — A former University of Utah football player filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the NCAA and the Western Athletic Conference for allegedly failing to protect athletes from concussions.
Richard Seals, who played defensive tackle from 1995 to 1999, claims he had numerous concussions at practice and in games during his four years at the U. As a result, he suffers from deficient cognitive and reasoning skills, memory loss, sleeplessness and mood swings, according to the suit file in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City.
Seals is among former players at Penn State, Auburn, Georgia, Oregon and Vanderbilt who sued the NCAA, their former athletic conferences and in some cases their former schools Tuesday.
Chicago-based Edelson PC intends to file dozens of class-action lawsuits against the NCAA and conferences and schools around the country in the coming weeks and months, said Chris Dore, an attorney with the firm.
The federal complaints come as the NCAA finalizes a $75 million settlement from a different lawsuit related to concussions.
Dore said that case involves only medical monitoring for former players, but does not compensate them for any injuries those tests might reveal.
"The issues with concussions and football is not a new story, but we have basically felt there is a void in the specific space of bringing personal injury claims," he said. "Our suits are seeking to get real monetary compensation for individuals who are truly suffering from significant and ongoing injuries."
Though the University of Utah is not named as a defendant in the case, Dore said it would be at some point. The WAC is named because that is the conference Utah played in during the majority of Seals' time at the school. Utah is now in the Pac-12.
The New York Jets picked Seals in the seventh round of the 2000 NFL draft, but he never played a game in the league.
The university had no comment on the lawsuit Tuesday, said U. spokeswoman Maria O'Mara.
For decades, the NCAA, WAC and the U. were aware that severe head impacts can lead to long-term brain injury, including memory loss, dementia, depression and CTE, according to the lawsuit.
"However, the University of Utah, along with the NCAA and WAC, failed to warn those prospective students of the grave risk collegiate football posed to their long-term health," the suit says.
"And by its own trainer’s statements, the University of Utah relied on its players to tell it whether they had headaches to determine whether they may have experienced a significant head injury."
The lawsuit claims while the NCAA, WAC and the U. were aware of the risks to players, they failed to adopt any of the internationally accepted guidelines for concussion management and return-to-play protocols until 2010.
Football players, Dore said, are subjected to what amounts to a car accident every day in practice and games.
"At the end of the day, they're kids that are coming without agents, without a team of adults necessarily to guide them and certainly without being paid into a school where they are trusting the institution and they're trusting their coaches to take care of them," he said.
The lawsuit doesn't specify how much money former players should get as a result of their injuries.
Bowling Green University in Ohio settled a concussion lawsuit this month with a former offensive lineman for $712,000.
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