Ex-WWE wrestlers’ brain injury lawsuit goes to Supreme Court

Several former professional wrestlers who have said in lawsuits that World Wrestling Entertainment failed to protect them from repeated head injuries are taking their cases to the United States Supreme Court.

An attorney for the former wrestlers filed a claim Wednesday evening asking the Supreme Court to hear appeals from lower court decisions that dismissed the lawsuits, saying they were filed after the statute of limitations expired. WWE says the lawsuits are baseless and believes the appeals will not succeed.

The plaintiffs include William “Billy Jack” Haynes, Russ “Big Russ” McCullough, Ryan Sakoda, Matthew “Luther Reigns” Wiese and the wife of the late Nelson “Viscera” Frazier, also known as Big Daddy V, who died in 2014.

They were among more than 50 former wrestlers, mostly stars of the 1980s and 1990s, who sued WWE, claiming to have suffered repeated head injuries, including concussions, which resulted in brain damage to long term. They accused WWE, based in Stamford, Connecticut, of knowing the risks of head injuries but of failing to warn its wrestlers. Several of the lawsuits were dismissed by a lower federal court in 2018.

Other wrestlers who complained included Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka, Joseph “Road Warrior Animal” Laurinaitis, Paul “Mr. Magnificent ”Orndorff, Chris“ King Kong Bundy ”Pallies and Harry Masayoshi Fujiwara, known as Mr. Fuji.

Snuka and Fujiwara died in 2017 and 2016, respectively, and were diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, after their deaths, according to their attorney. Pallies and Laurinaitis died in 2019 and 2020, respectively, from undisclosed causes. Other plaintiffs suffer from dementia and other illnesses, according to the lawsuit.

In September, the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City dismissed several of the lawsuits, some of which it said were filed too late. The court upheld the 2018 rulings of Federal Judge Vanessa Bryant in Connecticut, who said there was no evidence WWE knew concussions or head shots during wrestling matches caused the CTE.

Former wrestlers’ attorney Konstantine Kyros, based in Hingham, Mass., Criticized the decisions and said the former wrestlers had been “deprived of their basic rights as US citizens, including their right to appeal.” .

Kyros said the 2nd Circuit court dismissed earlier appeals because final decisions had not been made in all lawsuits. After Bryant made those final rulings in 2018, Kyros re-filed appeals in several of the lawsuits that are currently before the Supreme Court. But he said Circuit 2 had rejected those appeals, saying they were filed too late under a new precedent set by the Supreme Court.

Jerry McDevitt, a WWE lawyer, said he didn’t think the attempt to revive the five wrestlers’ lawsuits would be successful.

In his 2018 ruling, Bryant also criticized Kyros for repeatedly failing to comply with court rules and orders and ordered him to pay WWE’s legal fees – more than $ 500,000.

Unlike football and hockey, in which players have suffered similar injuries, WWE matches involve movements scripted and choreographed by WWE, thus making the company directly responsible for wrestler injuries, according to the lawsuits.

The National Football League and the National Hockey League have also been sued by former players who suffered concussions and other head injuries. The NFL settled for $ 1 billion, while the NHL settled for $ 18.9 million.