Wrongful death complaint filed against NCAA goes to trial, it is the first of its kind to go in front of a jury
By Conor Gormally. This article was initially published in our Concussion Update newsletter; please consider subscribing.
On October 21, testimonies began in a trial stemming from a wrongful death suit filed against the NCAA by the widow of former USC linebacker Mathew Gee. According to a Concussion Legacy Foundation profile, Gee began suffering cognitive, mood, behavior, and impulse-control problems in 2014 at the age of 45. Gee was a linebacker for USC from 1988-1992, suffering multiple concussions and innumerable subconcussive impacts. He died four years later, in 2018, at 49. Gee’s widow filed the suit against the NCAA after Gee was diagnosed posthumously with the neurodegenerative disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
On October 25, the jury heard testimony from medical historian Stephen Casper, PhD. Dr. Casper is a member of Concussion Alliance’s Expert Advisory Board and a member of the Repercussion Group (an international working group that Concussion Alliance is also part of). According to a Law360 article, Casper’s testimony claimed that the NCAA “knew concussions posed a danger to athletes as early as 1933.” Casper’s testimony asserted that the NCAA knew about brain trauma and related neurological diseases well before Gee’s playing career. Casper showed the jury excerpts from a 1933 sports medicine handbook that included passages on how to manage unconsciousness, headaches, dizziness, blurred vision, and vomiting; specifically, the handbook stated that players experiencing these symptoms longer than 48 hours shouldn’t compete for at least 21 days.
Dr. Casper’s testimonial included other examples from across the 20th century demonstrating the significant amount and availability of research surrounding brain trauma and neurodegenerative disease. The lynchpin of this trial is determining a causal effect between head impacts and CTE, which the NCAA’s lawyers argued against in their opening statements. It remains to be seen how the recent change in the National Institute of Health's stance on CTE will affect the course of this trial; the new NIH stance acknowledges that “Research-to-date suggests (CTE) is caused in part by repeated traumatic brain injuries.” See our Culture article in this issue on the NIH changes.