Vickery and Henson join list of legends in major concussion lawsuit against World Rugby

People have known about concussions and how bad it is for over a hundred years.

If this case is successful, I bet there will be a similar case filed in Australia. If your old man played club rugby or higher for a few years or more, it sounds like he could be a fringe candidate. The guys grabbing all the headlines are players from the early days of professionalism, but it doesn't seem restricted to them.

You fool. Lawyers are there to allow the court to decide. And in cases like this, to facilitate access to justice for those who couldn’t afford it otherwise. How much work do you do for free (pro bono) or where being paid is contingent on winning? Thought so.

If that is the case, might need to see about getting my father attached to it. He's in his eighties now, and the gears are slipping every second tooth.

There are players aged all the way up to 80 in the list. So there are guys from the amateur era in there.

If there is a claimant aged 80, that guy was playing (and not getting paid for it) in the 60s and 70s. You can guarantee that anyone with a slight concussion would just run it off back then. Knowledge about CTE was zero.

Interesting then if you are right and the players are reducing it specifically to hits in the head, received in matches. I would expect they'll need to itemise each specific hit then, and a direct causal link to their injuries. And given so many seem to be forwards, that it wasn't any other cause. Perhaps that is the evidence gap the judge is talking about...?

Punishing those who breach rules surely encourage better compliance. Safer rules to minimise accidents also help. This lawsuit doesn't hinge on rugby governing bodies making the game risk free. It hinges on them supposedly not putting in place reasonable mechanisms to reduce risks in a timely manner. Eg. new tackle height changes now - should these have been put in place earlier?

But punishments don’t mitigate the risk, as they are after the event. In the same way that the threat of instant dismissal of a worker who causes an accident doesn’t prevent accidents. And in fact would likely be considered unreasonable in many cases. . An employer can’t and aren’t expected to provide workplaces free from all risk, they can only provide training, good procedures and the reasonable measures to ensure workers are capable of doing their work safely. They can’t make them do it safely however, nor can they ever completely stop accidents. Which is why, when Worksafe defines the various responsibilities around workplace safety, it specifically notes that “While at work, workers must take reasonable care for their own health and safety, and that of others who may be affected by the worker’s acts or omissions.“. Which I think is more the point being made – not that ‘It is unsafe from acts of God and wild animals, suck it up’ (although that can and does also happen; it is called danger money), more ‘You’ve had the instruction and know the expectations, it is now as safe as you yourselves make it”.

Hi Mirt… that is basically what the NFL does…. But they have the money to keep doing it year in year out. I doubt rugby will have the deep pockets to do this every year because that is what will happen if they start paying out. At least law suit can be settled and hopefully be a one and done payout. What these players don’t realise is that most of the money they will will go to the pockets of the lawyers.

Please. Go and read how this problem is developing from sub concussions. I can handle difference of opinions. But you are seriously infuriating. The 'problem' is not that all these players copped high tackles or, to relate to your example, from headbutting goalposts because there's no sign above them. It's from training on cold wet Tuesday and Thursday evenings doing clearouts or jackling for hours and hours on end week in week out as much as the big high shots and big clear concussions.

You are missing the point entirely and your commentary on such a very serious topic is quite disingenuous. If - and it seems to be a big if - you want to inform yourself before commenting, go have a look at what the issues are for the players and what the causes of the dementia are. It is not the big shots alone, it is the repeated smaller hits - Sub concussions. Steve Thompson talks about playing through concussions that clubs knew about but also the physical demands of training and repeated blows during physical activity. He also speaks of law changes to increase dpeed and size to make the game more of a TV product. How he had to put on huge amounts of size quickly. And more. I'm sorry but this is a serious situation and people's lives which will be cut short. As Steve himself says, he wishes he never played. I just find some of the comments disgusting really. A pathetic effort to get into the cut and thrust of forum debate.

“ I don’t know where personal culpability becomes an issue for administrators” The same place it does for any workplace. The criminal analogy is not at all similar. Is an employer responsible when a worker repeatedly breaches method statements and injures other workers? Absolutely.

That’s completely untrue. Everybody who has similar injuries due to workplace accidents can take the exact same route for example.

Telling a worker “oh it’s unsafe, work at your own risk” would not fly legally. Which is essentially what they are saying. They knew the risks. If a player continually acted in a way outside the rules that put them in danger, then they would have some blame, like a worker who didn’t follow a method statement and injured themselves. But players have been injured because of acts of others. And it’s the responsibility of the governing body to put in place adequate mechanisms (eg punishments) to mitigate those risks. Much in the same way an employer is required to have oversight in case one worker acts carelessly and injures another worker.

But the ‘others’ are each other. . The players are representing themselves as a collective, and as a collective they both tackled and were tackled. Just as a team of scaffies build a scaffold, then use a scaffold, even if only one of them gets hurt. . It is a pretty direct analogue, if not one that would have occurred to me. The players were trained to tackle well, some failed to do so, and others of the same group got hurt. Some making claims may well be exactly the players that impacted other co-claimants.

I wish I had been able to :unhappy:

Also take that a step further, does work stress cause me mental challenges later in life or have repurcussions to the individual and to what extent. Not sismissing the seriousness or the irrefutable evidence that multiple concussions and serious headknocks cause damage. On a slightly off-track note, they hace found the brain can rewire itself even in the event of a serious stroke. To what extent can the brain recover after a head knock. How long should the stand down period be

I doubt even them Tony, but more likely those close to them. Your point is valid, but so much humour is at the expense of someone. The point is normally not at the expense of those with life-threatening illnesses. But while Ferret’s comment was edgy and hit a nerve.. there was a part of me that saw the humour in it. I don’t think it was malicous, but by the same token people are entitled to find it offensive as you do and that it crosses a personal line for them.

Pretty hard to stop someone from doing something before they do it. How are they allowing it to happen exactly?